Have you ever thought about how a viewer looks at or reads your website? If you haven’t and you run an online business, it’s a topic that you may find of some use.

In general, websites and web pages are designed to be pretty. There’s somewhat of a myth out there that leads business owners into believing that if their website looks good, people will read it or buy from it. Unfortunately, looks often have very little to do with whether or not a web page viewer elects to read information or purchase a product from a site. There is nothing wrong with having a beautiful website apart and if done right, it can set your business apart from the rest, but too often, other important factors become lost, which can lead to online businesses either missing readers or sales.

To explore this, let’s take a look at how Internet users read web pages and how it’s important to your online business.

Speed

Before we look at the most common pattern used by Internet users to read or look at web pages, we need to think about speed. Most people who read or shop online want to do so quickly. They don’t want to spend a long period of time sorting through information that they’re not looking for.

Based on this information, it’s important for the titles and descriptions of your web pages to be accurate. A catchy title will always stay a catchy title if the content or products below it don’t live up to what the title says. To get people to look further than just a title, the information or product being displayed below should match up so that it will keep the viewer interested in exploring more.

Reading Pattern

Now let’s take a look at the pattern in which most Internet users read or view web pages. It’s called the “F” pattern and for a good reason. Think about the shape of the letter “F.” If transposed onto a web page, the most important information should be at the top; then the user is going to scroll down and view the left side of the screen until they get to the middle and then they will read or view from left to right. If the viewer or reader has made it this far on the web page, they will then continue to scroll.

What Does this Mean For Online Businesses?

It means that by taking a look at where the information is displayed on your web pages, you can get a better idea for whether or not moving things around a little bit will benefit your business. If the information on your website is stuffed into areas where Internet users don’t often look or don’t prefer to look, then they may be missing important information or they may be missing out on some of the products that you have to offer.

One thing to be cautious of though is if you have a lot of repeated visitors who are used to finding certain things on your website in specific places. If you’re redesigning your website or are thinking about moving the content around, it’s always a good idea to start off with a small change than to make visitors feel unfamiliar with what they are looking at.