Every webmaster wonders what they can do to improve the popularity of their webpage. Should they write more articles, lower their prices or create a message board? Well the answer to this predicament could be found in the new eye tracking studies, which measure people’s physical responses to the web. The latest eye tracking studies demonstrate how people read web content and how their brains acquire or discard information. This means that you can actually create content that makes use of this information. By targeting your preferred market in the best possible way, you will be able to increase your site’s popularity and go up in rankings. After all the old adage holds true: give your customers what they want and they will be back for more.

People like to believe that they are utterly unique and that they have their own singular way of doing things. Nevertheless, this is simply not true. The following are some of the rules and patterns that came out of these eye tracking studies. I also included suggestions of how you can use these findings to improve your own webpages.

Rule #1 – Reading Patterns

No matter what type of web content people are reading they have a tendency to read in an F pattern.

• Users first read the top line of the page from left to right.
• Users then move down the page and again read from left to right.
• Finally, in order to finish the page, users visually scan the rest of the content from top to bottom focusing on the left side of the page.

What you can learn from this:

• The starting sentences of the first two paragraphs must be exceptionally interesting to encourage people to keep reading.
• If you have links that you want people to click on, place them on the left side of the screen. This might require reformatting the article.
• Divide the article into sections and place the headings of each section on the left side of the screen. This way you have a greater chance of attracting users’ attention while they are scanning the article.

Rule #2 – White Space

Most webmasters think that white-space is boring and that users will ignore sites that heavily rely on this technique. However, eye tracking studies show that users actually understand more and are happier when they are presented with less content.

• People’s comprehension increases when they are offered shorter articles.
• Bullets and subheadings improve the overall grasp of the information presented.
• Pictures make the overall article more memorable to the users.

What you can learn from this:

• Keep your articles short and use bullet points or subheadings to underline key ideas.
• Use interesting pictures to make information more memorable. But be careful not to overdo this or you risk losing more than you gain.
• Always keep your target market in mind. Make the article as long as you can, but not a word longer than necessary.
• Cut down on the noise and make your message crisp and clear for your users. Eliminate extra graphics, background colors, and unnecessary words.

Rule # 3 - Elderly & Low-Literacy Users

As web is expanding and reaching new parts of the world’s population, low-literacy users are becoming much more common. The studies show that they have very different reading patterns than your typical internet population. Even if your business does not target third-world population, you should understand these results since older users display very similar reading patterns.

• Low-literacy users do not scan the pages in a way that high-literacy users have become accustomed to doing.
• Low-literacy individual read almost every single word in an article before they are ready to move on.
• Low-literacy readers can become frustrated if too many pictures interrupt the flow of the article. These readers are willing to leave the article if the structure or content gets to be too complicated.
• Low-literacy readers do not like long articles since they often require them to scroll down and this breaks their concentration.

What you can learn from this:

• Your site should have information that is delivered in short and crisp paragraphs. Do not use complicated words, and keep your sentences short.
• If you want to use pictures place them at the very end or the very beginning of the paragraph. Do not intermingle text and graphics.
• Keep your articles short so that scrolling is not necessary to read the whole article.

If you have done your homework and your site ranks well, you might think you are done and success is soon to come. Well you might want to be careful. Even if you can attract traffic to your site, it doesn’t mean you are going to keep it.

The beauty of bounce rates and why it is one of my favorite metrics is because of its value in measuring the quality of your traffic. If you don't already know, bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors that leave a page without visiting any other pages before a set time elapses. While it is pretty hard to get anything under 20%, anything under 35% could use some tweaking and if you have anything over 50% then this guide is especially for you:

Here are seven things that you need to keep in mind in order to stay on top:

1. Spice It Up With Flash. This word is dreaded by most search engine optimization (SEO) practitioners. Since search engines are designed to handle static content, flash content presents a problem for most of these engines. However, users love the eye candy experience and tend to return to these websites. Proper and minimal use of flash content will allow your site to get indexed, but will also encourage visitors to stick around.

2. Pictures Say A Thousand Words. Think BIG! Your images should be polished, sleek, glamorous. Apple's web site is a perfect example of this philosophy. And with Google now being able to recognize text within images, it gives you even more of a reason to enhance your site with some pretty graphics.

3. Make it Interactive. Make your site as easy to use and as personal as possible! The site needs to respond to its user's needs and anticipate their demands. Organize informal focus groups when designing your site. Ask users what features they would want to see on a site, encourage them to share even their nominal wishes. Develop a site that has unexpected features which make users stick around.

Example - Amazon.com was one of the first sites that thought of providing buying patterns of past customers to its current clients before they made a single purchase. Such a simple tool made Amazon.com stand out from its competitors and encouraged users to explore other products on the site.

4. Stylish Design. Nobody likes going to a site that looks like it was designed in 1998. Keep the whole look modern and stylish.

• Don't overload the page with graphics so that the page takes 3 minutes to download. Keep in mind that many users do not have fast internet connections and may leave before the site is fully loaded.
• If at any time you decide to upgrade your site, please do this as quickly as possible. Each day that your site is down you stand to lose hundreds of customers. The American public has a notoriously short attention span, and a slow initial load can be detrimental to a site’s success.
• Finally, do periodic maintenance by checking your site for broken links, outdated information or design flaws.

5. Friendly Navigation. Your site needs to be well structured. There can't be any confusion! Users will not stick around if they can't easily find the products they need. In order to attract long-term customers, make sure your site is ultra-professional. You need to inspire confidence. This means that consumers need to be able to navigate from one page to the next with ease.

• Hypertext (imbedded links) are a great way to encourage customers to continue surfing the site.
• Navigation bar is also a must for any professional site.
• Include a search box or provide a site map for more advanced users.

6. Relevancy. If you want to capture consumer attention, you must devote time and money to developing high quality content. Be sure to use a visitor tracking service to understand what terms people are using to locate your site. If you notice that there is a high bounce rate associated with some of these visits, make sure that the search terms and the site content are in sync.

Be careful not to cover a dozen different topics and industries at the same time. Consumers need to KNOW what your site is about within the first few minutes of their visit or they may become frustrated and leave.

7. K.I.S.S. Keep it Simple Stupid. We would all love to have a top-of-the line premium website. However, sometimes it's best to keep things simple. Top websites require a lot of maintenance and most webmasters can’t commit to this type of expense. Keep in mind that you can still attract users with simple graphics and easy to navigate pages. Don't ignore the power of white space coupled with a few key pictures or slogans. Concentrate your efforts on creating a unique message that can make your site stand out from the competition.