Leverage your “above-the-fold” area

Above-the-fold is that area in your site that’s visible when the page first loads, before the user scrolls down. Recent studies show that people will scroll down a web page, but they’ll spend 80% of their time above-the-fold and only a measly 20% below-the-fold.

I always place the most important elements on my blog, such as the menu bar, my opt-in form, content headlines, excerpts and call-to-action buttons, above-the-fold:

Try to avoid using sliders above-the-fold, except when there’s a good reason for it. Sliders disrupt your readers and potential clients and they don’t perform very well.

Potential clients don’t want to waste their time looking for important information on your blog. If you’re a freelancer or SEO consultant, make it easy for your prospects to find your services page quickly.

If you place important information above-the-fold, you’ll definitely get more views for that info and convert more visitors into paying clients as well – it’s a tremendously effective content marketing strategy to stick to.

Ben Hunt increased his click-through rate significantly. He got 680 people to click his above-the-fold promotion, while only 109 people responded to the promotion when it was placed in the side column, below-the-fold.

Most smart internet marketers reserve their above-the-fold section for list-building elements. That’s exactly what David Garland did with his flagship blog, The Rise to the Top.