Quite a lot really. Ten seconds may only be a fraction in a span of a day. In the realm of the World Wide Web, however, those ten seconds are an eternity.
While surfing the net, people are usually in a hurry to get to their desired website. This is due to the fact that most people who use the Internet are on the move (business people, students doing research, etc) and don’t have time for slow connections or websites. In fact, around 60 percent of Internet users would go to another website if they find the site too slow or if they have to click their mouse too many times.
Think about it: they are using the Internet in order to save time. Rather than rummaging through books in a public library, all they have to do is type in their query in a search engine and the information they need is right in front of them.
And those ten seconds? That's how long it takes for most users to decide if a website is interesting or not. This is the main reason why your website design must be interesting and informative. The website home page is pretty much like the cover of your favourite magazine or newspaper. Headlines that grab readers’ attention (even passers-by), interesting articles, and short yet straight-to-the-point messages are what will determine whether people stop to read, buy, or simply walk away.
The same holds true for the home page. More than just being pretty, a good home page is one that makes viewers enter the site. It should contain all the necessary information on what they can expect from the site. The emphasis is on short and direct here, because if viewers had all they need to know in one page, they wouldn’t enter at all. Make sure that the page doesn’t take more than ten seconds to open (of course, this is also to do with bandwidth - but that’s another topic altogether). As for text, studies show that the first paragraph or first 40 words are what makes the difference.
Be sure, though, that your website design delivers on the homepage’s promise. Otherwise, you will have wasted that initial ten seconds and lost the viewer just the same.
This is no one’s fault really - it is how the human mind works. It is the responsibility of the website designers and development team to make the most of those ten seconds.
So, make that website design count. Just remember to count to ten.
Talk to The Web Marketing Group about Website Design - click here or call 0845 555 5040
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