What happens in the first five seconds on your website

A visitor arrives, glances, and decides whether to stay. That decision is made before they have read a single full sentence, and almost everything about whether your site earns anything depends on it.

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In the first seconds on a page, a visitor asks three silent questions: what is this, is it for me, and can it solve my problem. They answer those questions by scanning the top of the page, not by reading it. If the top of the page does not answer all three quickly, most visitors leave, and no amount of good material further down will reach them.

Nobody reads your homepage. They scan it.

There is a comfortable illusion among people who own websites: that a visitor arrives, begins at the top, and reads carefully downward. It is not what happens. A visitor arrives already slightly impatient, often with several other tabs open, and their eyes move in quick jumps across the largest text, the images, and anything that looks like a button.

This is not laziness. It is a sensible way to handle a great deal of information. The visitor is not trying to understand your business, they are trying to decide whether understanding your business is worth their next thirty seconds. Everything you have written is being judged before most of it is read.

The three silent questions

Watch enough people use enough websites and the same three questions appear, always in the same order, never spoken aloud.

  • What is this? Not your mission, not your values, simply what you do in plain words.
  • Is it for me? A person like me, in a situation like mine, in a place like this.
  • Can it solve my problem? Some early sign that you have done this before and can do it again.

Why slogans fail this test so reliably

A great many homepages open with something like elevating excellence or your partner in progress. These phrases feel professional to the person who approved them and mean nothing at all to a stranger. They answer none of the three questions, and they consume the most valuable space on the site doing so.

The cure is unglamorous. Replace the slogan with a sentence that says what you do, who you do it for, and where. It will read as plainer than what you had. It will also be understood, which the previous version was not.

The five second test, done properly

This is the cheapest research you will ever run and one of the most uncomfortable. Find somebody who does not know your business. Show them the top of your homepage for five seconds, on a phone. Then cover the screen and ask what you do, who for, and whether they would know if it applied to them.

Do this with three or four people. If they hesitate, or if they answer with a category so broad it could describe a hundred businesses, you have found the largest single problem on your website. Fixing it costs an afternoon and affects every visitor from every source at once.

  • Use a phone, not a laptop, because that is where most visitors are.
  • Show only what appears without scrolling.
  • Ask them to say it back in their own words, not to rate it out of ten.
  • Do not explain anything first. The explanation is what you are testing.

What belongs in the space you have

The area a visitor sees before scrolling is small, especially on a phone, and it has to do a great deal of work. Every element in it should earn its place by answering one of the three questions or by making the next step obvious.

In practice that means a plain description of what you do, a line about who it is for, one piece of quick evidence, and a clear way to act. A large photograph that says nothing, a rotating banner that nobody waits for, and a cookie notice that covers half the screen are all costing you the same visitors.

Speed is part of the first impression

There is a version of this problem that happens before any of the above. If the page takes several seconds to show anything at all, the five seconds are spent watching a blank screen, and a proportion of visitors leave without ever seeing your message.

This is worth checking on mobile data rather than on your own connection at the office. Oversized images are the usual cause, and they are also the easiest thing on this entire page to fix.

How Licheo handles the top of the page

The copywriter agent writes the first screen around the three questions rather than around a slogan, in plain words a busy person can absorb at a glance. The conversion agent makes sure the next step is visible without scrolling and works with one thumb.

The performance agent keeps the page fast enough that the message actually arrives, because a brilliant first screen that appears after four seconds is a first screen that many people never see.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Websites that make money. The other parts:

Questions people ask

How long do I really have to make an impression?
Long enough for a glance, not long enough for a paragraph. The practical test is whether a stranger can say what you do and who for after five seconds on a phone. If they cannot, you are losing people who would have been good customers.
What should the top of my homepage say?
What you do, who you do it for, where you do it if location matters, and what to do next. One piece of evidence helps as well. Slogans, values statements, and abstract language belong further down the page, if at all.
Is a big hero image a mistake?
Only when it pushes the message off the screen or slows the page down. An image that shows your actual work supports the message. A generic stock photograph occupying the whole first screen is decoration that costs you visitors.
How do I run a five second test without a research budget?
Ask three or four people who do not know your business, using your own phone. Show the top of the page for five seconds, cover it, and ask what you do and who for. The answers are usually clear enough that no formal method is needed.
Does this apply to pages other than the homepage?
Yes, and often more so. Visitors from search land directly on service pages and articles, so each of those needs to pass the same test on its own. A homepage that explains everything cannot help somebody who never sees it.

Make the first five seconds work

The agents write the top of every page around what a stranger actually needs to know, then make the next step impossible to miss.

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