“Above the fold” is a term from the newspaper industry that refers to the content displayed on the top half of the newspaper after it is folded and placed on a shelf. This is prime real estate for the obvious reason that it is seen first by readers.

The same principle applies to online content. Let’s look at the Folk Media site that you are visiting right now. On our homepage we have content that is above the fold.

Everything that is above the gray area is seen by visitors first. Borrowing from the newspaper industry we call this “above the fold.” You’ll notice that we’ve placed our featured articles here, links to all the categories and (the most critical) our email sign up box.

Don’t make me think

Your visitors aren’t on your small business website to be entertained. They don’t want things cryptic and riddled.

Visitors are online searching for a solution. Hopefully your business provides that solution. So make sure you make it EASY for them to access your products, services and content.

Don’t make your customers think.

Imagine they are 5th graders and spell things out for them in the simplest terms.

“I’m not going to stoop to writing or designing my business website for a 5th grader!” I can hear you scream.

The truth is – the best communicators on the planet speak in simple folksy styles that appeal to even the youngest observers.

How to use the area “above the fold” effectively

Put your best stuff at the top of your homepage. Make sure you place your email opt in form here too. Here are the items that I feel are critical to your “above the fold” real estate.

• Your logo with a benefit driven, solutions focused slogan
• Your phone number
• Other critical social media platforms where customers can find you
• Your featured content and/or latest articles
• Blog category and page links for easy navigation around the site
• An opt in box for visitors to sign up for your email list

Today’s 10 minute action step: Find your “above the fold” space and evaluate

If you are not a designer here is a good way to brainstorm possible ideas for your homepage.

Print off 2 copies of your homepage. Take the first and lay it on your desk. Using a pair of scissors cut up all the elements of the second print off and play around with rearranging them on the first version. By doing this, you’ll see how space can be used and content can be organized.

If you are using a Wordpress blog,  look through some of the “done for you” designs that Woo Themes has created. There are many that have good above the fold designs. Some don’t – so looking through these is a great way to train your mind to think above the fold.

Now go take action.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

The big deal about time spent on a website

Some websites have millions of visitors each month. What many people fail to note is that many of these visitors stay for less than a second on the site. They land on a page, see that it’s not what they are interested in and click away.

In contrast, there are some sites that have only a few thousand visitors per month, but  a large percentage of their visitors are return readers and spend several minutes each visit consuming content.

When people spend time on your site it means they trust and value your content. If you are giving great value to your audience through your content, then you are in a strong position to capitalize on that by asking them for a sale or other action.

To get started

My first recommendation is to track and monitor what is currently happening on your website. Google has created a great free tool for this called Google Analytics. Once you set up an account you can take a piece of web code and place it on your site to to track all types of statistics. You can monitor the number of visitors, where they came from and how long they spent with with your content. It should take your webmaster only about 10 minutes to install on your page.

Once you have monitored the visitor activity on your site for a few weeks, it’s time to develop a strategy for keeping people on your site longer.

In a nutshell your basic strategy should involve the content you create, helping people find that content easily and capturing their information to help attract them back to your site later. But it starts with content. Without great content on your site, you really have no value to offer visitors.

Content to create

How to content

Online “how to” content is a great start. People spend a good amount of time online searching for information. If you can synthesize and package information around your industry or niche you will be able to keep people reading or watching once they find your website. The goal is to create helpful articles, podcasts and videos that are massively valuable to people. Your stuff should be so good you could sell it if you wanted to.

“Keep them watching” technique

Television networks are brilliant. They scrunch up the credits at the end of a movie or show and begin plugging the next show that is scheduled to come on. We know why they do it. It’s to keep you watching their channel by teasing you with the next piece of content.

You can also employ what I call the “keep them watching” technique on your site. By having headlines for a related blog posts or articles at the bottom of the one they are reading you will drive traffic internally to more and more content. If you are using popular blog software like Wordpress to power your content, there are several plugins that will do this for you automatically.

Think Harry Potter

The first Harry Potter book had to find an audience. J.K. Rowling was a nobody before the first Harry Potter book was published. But by the last book in the series, she was a multi-millionaire. Did she have to go out and create an audience from scratch for each of the Harry Potter sequels? Of course not. She created a series that built on itself which in turn kept her audience red hot to continue consuming her books.

You can do the same thing with your online content. Create a series of posts or articles that build upon each other…. part 1, part 2, part 3 and so forth. This is an easy way to get people to continue reading.

Get early buy-in

A very critical step to getting customers to spend more time on your site is to get them back to your site on a regular basis. I recommend to my clients that they need to get “buy-in” from site visitors as early as possible.

When a visitor lands on your site and begins to read your articles, they are the most interested they will ever be in your content. They will most likely forget you once they click away to another site.

Your number one goal is to get them on your email list as soon as possible. You can do this in a few different ways. One of the best ways I’ve found to work is offer something free in exchange for their email address. A free training video or coupon works well. Then by placing the email sign up form at the bottom of the article they just read and in the sidebar you will begin getting subscribers. Once you have their email address you can follow up with them, provide more great content and drive traffic back to your site.

Your next steps

There are three steps you should take right away to increase the time visitors spend on your site.

1. If you aren’t running Google Analytics on your site, you need to have your webmaster install it for you. You can get all the details by visiting the Google Analytics page.
2. Begin pumping out massively valuable content for your website. Think of ways to help people based on your business or industry. Your content itself is a huge magnet for keeping people on your website.
3. Place email opt-in forms on your website, sidebar and a the bottom of your posts and articles.  The idea is to get “buy-in” as early as possible to drive repeat traffic back to your site. If you don’t have an email service provider we’ve listed four great email service providers here. Currently we use Aweber on this site and are very happy with the results and low cost.

Getting visitors to spend more time on your website is very important. The more time they spend the more they will trust you and the more influence you will build.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter.

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*Photo by Menage a Moi