If you’re reading this, I really hope you understand what it means to have things “above the fold” and why it is or isn’t important to you. For years as marketers we’ve been telling our designers to try and put a square peg into a round hole. It might go like this: “Hey, I need a landing page and it’s got to have a huge headline at the top, 2 pages of text I wrote, a form, and a pretty button for the  call to action. And I need it to all fit above the fold. Thanks.”

Unless you’re a designer or have ever designed you won’t know why this is a ridiculous request and has been for a very long time. Is the fold still relevant? Sure, but stop trying to cram as much junk as possible above the fold. The term “above the fold” came from the dark ages of print and newspapers. When you translate it into the web definition, it’s the area you see in any browser when a web page opens. Pretty simple.

Should you still worry about your message and everything falling above the fold? I think it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Sites today are much more engaging and interactive, when you can add things like videos, animation and a fancy junk to attract the users attention. Big players like Amazon.com, and the BBC still have a hint of their most important information above the fold but they also have important information miles down the page, causing you to scroll and explore. Maybe they have taken “the fold” to another level; There is still relevant information above it, but there is also a lot more below it. More and more successful brands are beginning to ignore the fold a little and that’s quite alright.

What kinds of experiments have you done with your blogs and landing pages. Have you ever taken a less-is-more approach? Did you ever think that less content above the fold might encourage a user to explore your site a little more. To me, someone that is willing to browse your site (assuming it’s a well built site full of relevant content) will be a lot more valuable in the long term than someone that fills out a lead gen landing or page 2 form and hits submit.

Take a few risks with your designs and start trying new things. The basic blogs are played out and leave you with zero-value users and you scratching your head. I’ll leave you with a few tips:

• Less is more - don’t put everything you can think of above the fold. This really only works for a very small genre of pages, branch out and think about user value.
• Lead the user- experiment with page flow and lead your users right where you want them. Google Website Optimizer is a great tool to figure out how your visitors are behaving.
• Test Test Test- If you don’t constantly test new things, you’ll fail. Maybe everything above the fold is really working or maybe it’s not. You’ll never know how much extra cash you could be making until you test. The website optimizer will let you do A/B Split & Multivariable Testing – which is awesome.

I wanna know how you feel about keeping things above the fold – do you care, is it relevant to you anymore? What is your thought process when you’re coming up with landing pages for your products or offers? Let me hear you.

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