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3 seconds to capture a visitor
Written by Houman Kargaran
Sat18 Aug
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Dear oh Dear, I just can’t believe there are still websites that suggest a good looking page will keep your visitors there.

When I was at university one of my lecturers in Internet Design told me that when we design a website we have only 7 seconds to capture a visitors attention, don’t use heavy images and heavy media, try to keep your website below 32 kb, and list goes on and on.

Now I don’t think 7 seconds rule applies any more. Day by day we are bombarded by advertising which contains images, sounds, videos.

Everyone tries to draw our attention to something whether it is for purchasing a product or just brand awareness.

Our brain has learnt to deal with these distractions, we simply ignore it. You might have experienced it before. You go to bed at night and sleep while the biggest enemy of the advertising world slowly erases everything that could has not been caught in your sub conscious or Broca. I don’t want to talk about advertising and its methods, what I am trying to illustrate is, media is just a tool. You need to have a good message and detailed information in order to draw ones attention.

In the first 3 seconds if your user doesn’t get what she wants she will close the browser window. If she stays, it will be simply because of the look of your website, which is almost useless for your conversion. Your cool media will attract her for another 4 seconds and that’s all. You can potentially lose this valuable visitor forever.

Websites are about functionality, usability and overall design. Without one they all fail.

The most important questions to remember.

  • What do you want from a visitor? or What is the conversion in your site?
  • Is there any reason for your visitor to come back to your site?
  • How do you start a conversation with your visitor?

You are a graphic artist with lots and lots of cool images and multimedia? You want visitors to come to your website, view your portfolio, and ultimately buy some of your designs or even book an appointment for their new logo and web concept.

Let see what most of the graphic designers would do!

Home page: A cool flash video or some cool photo rotation functions and some text about the designer. In your navigation you have got the about us page, portfolio and contact us.

Your navigation is very straight forward and easy to go back and forth, however what is persuading your visitor to go through your portfolio, cool past jobs? cool multimedia?

Simple answer, what do you need to know if you want someone to design your logo?

  • The process of making the logo, all the steps
    • Customers brief
    • Colour concepts
    • Logo feeling
    • Logo analysis
  • The cost, all the hidden costs
  • Estimate delivery
  • And anything that you might think a customer needs to know

Every link in your website is part of the conversation with your visitor, give the wrong answer and you will lose him.

I am not against having cool flash videos in the home page, but you need to make sure only 30% of your home page consumes by multimedia unless the multimedia is the conversation with your visitor.

Enter a short blurb about you less than 2 paragraph, show only 200 characters with a read more link.

Second blurb will be an example of one of your successful jobs, enter a very detailed brief with all the processes that you have done in order to deliver that successful project.

Always make sure that your blurb finishes with a persuasive flow. Something that will make your client want to click on. Make as many hyper-link as you can inside your second blurb, if you are talking about the logo analysis process make the link to one of your services that has the logo analysis subject in it.

Good websites needs to answer all of these questions, without needing you for anything unless there is a very specific question.

To wrap up this long article, just remember detailed information and proper message can keep your visitors for a long time in your page and make them want to come back for more.

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