Above The Fold – what is it?

In Internet marketing, as in life, the first impression can often be the most important. What a user sees immediately after entering your website can influence their decision to stay or leave. What is Above the Fold and why should you be familiar with the term?

What does Above The Fold mean?

Originally, the term ‘Above the Fold’ referred to the top of the front page of a paper newspaper, usually containing the most important, sensational news.

Today, the term ‘Above The Fold’ is also associated with web design. It refers to all those elements of a page that are visible to the user without scrolling. They appear on the screen first, as soon as the page loads. “Above the fold” in this case is therefore the bottom edge of the device on which the page is visited.

“Above the fold” is a very important place from an Internet marketing point of view, because the elements there draw the users’ attention the most. They should therefore maximally encourage them to continue using the page in question and ultimately convert.

What should be included in the Above The Fold?

The Above The Fold is where the most important information and elements of a page are usually located, such as

• a header with the name or title of the page and possibly the company behind it:
• logo; site banner;
• navigation menu;
• the main call to action button or USP ticker (for sales and business pages);
• contact information;
• summary, most important information about the site;
• crumb navigation – breadcrumbs;
• distinctive graphics (for article pages).

There is no single formula that always works for what you should put ‘above the fold’ on your website. It’s important to test different solutions (e.g. using A/B testing) and look for the one that will best reach your audience and most effectively encourage them to keep scrolling.

Above The Fold will usually look different on different types of website pages. E.g. ATF content on the homepage may be partially different from content on a blog or E-commerce category subpage. However, certain elements, such as navigation, should be quickly accessible from any subpage.

Why is space in Above The Fold important for marketing?

What you put in Above The Fold is crucial in terms of the user experience of the site. The content and links that will be visible first may encourage or discourage a longer stay, and these are the ones that users statistically pay the most attention to.

The content of Above The Fold and its impact on user behaviour is not without influence on the positioning of the site. If the content in the Above The Fold causes them to leave it quickly, this may be a signal to Google that the page is not very valuable. In practice, Google may also rank less well for pages that display a lot of ads or pop-ups in the ATF that obscure the actual content.

Google used to give more weight to elements in Above The Fold, but with the introduction of artificial intelligence elements into the algorithm, this has proved unnecessary. Nowadays, robots consider all the content on a page, but that doesn’t change the fact that live users may still stop at the first thing they see.

For this reason, Above The Fold content can be an important factor in optimising conversions and gaining new leads.

Above The Fold on different devices

When designing a website today, one cannot forget to make it equally user-friendly for desktop and mobile users. This is first and foremost a technical SEO requirement, linked to Google’s introduction of mobile indexing, but there is also no denying that globally, the amount of traffic coming from phones and tablets continues to grow. So it’s worth remembering to tailor Above The Fold elements with all devices in mind – after all, you don’t want bad design to turn away half of your potential customers.

Make a good first impression!

Above The Fold is, in a sense, the ‘cover’ of your website. While it’s well known that we shouldn’t judge books by them, that’s how many of us operate online and in our daily lives.

Carefully designed, tested and encouraging further surfing, the elements in Above The Fold can become your company’s showcase and have a positive impact on its business metrics.

If you don’t know where to start, you can partner with a professional marketing agency that also deals with web and app design.