Here are the statistics on screen resolutions as recorded by Google Analytics for visitors to http://www.amfsoftware.com:
1. 1024x768 40.00%
2. 1280x1024 18.60%
3. 1280x800 13.17%
4. 1440x900 6.04%
5. 800x600 5.47%
6. 1680x1050 4.67%
7. 1152x864 3.61%
8. 1920x1200 1.56%
9. 1280x768 1.54%
10. 1280x960 1.27%
Here are screenshots of the home page at the two lowest resolutions:
800x600
1024x768
During the Above the fold experiment, I saw a 68.2% increase in conversions to the CD Label Maker product which I moved to the top of the page. I targeted the CD Label Maker product since the Business Card Designer has MUCH stronger traffic via search engine positions to interior landing pages. The CD Label Maker has a few search engine positions that point to the home page of http://www.amfsoftware.com. The results were so conclusive that Google’s Website Optimizer determined the version with the CD Label Maker product above the fold to be a winner in less than a week.
As you can see my home page is arranged so that the two top selling products are above the fold at the most common resolution (1024x768). Placing the CD Label Maker product at the top of the page put the product in view for people at 800x600 resolution, placed the Buy, Try and Explore buttons above the fold for users at 1024x768 with two or more toolbars and placed the product and the buttons front and center for users at higher resolutions.
The bottom line is that more people were able to see the buttons that I wanted them to press without having to scroll. However one question still remains unanswered - was the presence of the buttons above the fold that increased conversions or does conversion continue to increase as content is placed higher and higher on a page? Is there a limit to this? For example, do people ignore content in the header of a site?
I’ve got an experiment in mind that should help me answer this question. I’ve got a big header that takes up space on http://www.amfsoftware.com. I plan on testing how removing this affects conversions. As it stands now, the Try button for the CD Label Maker product is visible to almost all my visitors without them having to scroll. Visitors can click on the buttons without having to scroll even if they have extra toolbars that push down content. Removing the header will push the content up; all the buttons will still remain above the fold but they will be shifted up. I’ve determined that content above the fold seems to convert better, this experiment should determine if the conversion increases as the content is pushed above even further.
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