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People judge your book by the cover
It's difficult to get high rankings on search engines. It's
a lot of work and it takes some time until people can find
your site for search terms that are relevant to your business.
When people find your web site through search engines, you
must keep them on your site and you must convince them. A
new study that was recently published in the journal "Behaviour
and Information Technology" shows how important it is to
make a good first impression.
The first impression is very important
A new study that has recently been published in the journal Behaviour
and Information Technology shows that the snap decisions
Internet users make about the quality of a web page have
a lasting impact on their opinions.
It is very important that your web pages look good and
that they have a trustworthy design.
You have 50 milliseconds
The study was conducted by Dr. Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton
University in Ottawa. Lindgaard and her colleagues showed
volunteers briefest glimpses of web pages previously rated
as being either easy on the eye or particularly jarring,
and asked them to rate the websites on a sliding scale
of visual appeal.
Although the images were shown for just 50 milliseconds,
the ratings were very similar to the judgments made after
a longer examination of a web site.
Psychologists call this the halo
effect. If people continue to use a web site that
gave a good first impression they "prove" to themselves
that they made a good initial decision.
What does this mean to your web site?
It's crucial that your site makes a good first impression.
Otherwise, people might go to the next web site in the
search results before finding out that you have great offers.
Make your web pages easy to read. Use a clear web site
design and make it easy to find out what your web site
is about.
Don't put everything you can on a single page. Focus on
a clear message and tell your web site visitors what's
in it for them when they visit your site.
Making a good first impression can be the determining factor
for the success of your web site. If you're sure that your
web pages don't deter web surfers, you can optimize
them for top 10 rankings on Google, Yahoo and other important
search engines.
If you have a compelling web site then more visitors will
convert to sales. If you don't know how to get your web pages
on the first page of the search results, take a look at our
free search
engine optimization eBook.
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