Above the fold myth
It’s a myth that blog design requires getting the most important things you want readers to see ‘above the fold’ so that readers do not have to scroll down.
This goes for all the typical things lawyers may look for. Phone number, intake form, or an ad promoting the law firm or other entity.
From an interesting article, Demystifying “Above the Fold”, some common sense:
In the beginning days of the web, we thought we had to fit all the content on 1 page, all above the fold. The problem was everything got squished, ugly, and very hard to read. So instead of trying to get all content on 1 web page, people were smart enough to create multiple web pages, i.e. a website! During this time, we also learned that is was pretty damn annoying to have to load a new page to get to new content, so pages got longer, people began to really love scroll bars, and then AJAX was invented. Thus websites now look and work a lot better than they did in the 90’s!
And as to ads:
A couple years ago there was this idea that putting the ad above the fold would get more attention. However visitors just completely overlooked the ads because they were coming to the site to read the content and didn’t give a doodle about what sat on the way top of the page. And really, when people were reading the content, the ads were too high to see and/or click on and website owners and their advertisers were not making any mula.
While this may sound bad, we quickly found a solution. Today we put the ads next to the content or in between action points like commenting or sharing links. This is because the visitor subconsciously sees the ad and may be looking for something to do next. When next to an action point like a comment, the visitor is no longer reading the article and is much more inclined to click on an ad.
Lawyers need to realize one, they have no training or experience in web design, and two, that web design has progressed since the ’90’s. Unfortunately, that also goes for a lot of legal web site and blog developers.
Look at Yahoo, the New York Times, CNN, Amazon, and other websites you may use. An awful lot of important call to action items are ‘below the fold.’