Above the Fold? Re-Thinking Your Web Copy

Sometimes when I have a design job I am told, “We want all our text ‘above the fold.’” When asked why, often the answer is because somebody in the company had mentioned that they heard it was a good idea not to have any web content below the fold.

I can see the logic – text above the fold can be read without having to scroll, which makes it more likely to be read in those precious few moments a visitor’s eyes first meet your site, but where exactly is the fold?

On my desktop computer, with a regular 19 inch monitor, my browser window has several tool bars open and I still have several inches of screen space. Switch over to my laptop, with a 15.4 inch widescreen monitor, and nary a tool bar, and the fold hits almost immediately – there is barely depth enough for a header, a photo and a couple of paragraphs.

I like to keep the good stuff above the fold – but not all of it – because web copy is important and its importance doesn’t drop off because it is below a very hard to define area.

The word count on your web page needs to be high enough to impart information not only to your readers, but also search engine robots so they can ascertain how relevant your content is for their search queries. (more…)

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