May 29, 2003
Blog Entry

Lab discovers people don't "see" right-side links

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SUMMARY: No summary available.
I have preached in the past that marketers with common sense
would stick some important links on the right-hand side of Web
pages because people read English left-to-right and most people
click using their right hand.

It seemed like a "duh."

Then I learned that a usability lab in NYC has repeatedly tested
this for loads of prominent sites … and found consumers ignore
the right-hand column almost completely because it's a spot that
so often contains advertising.

Seems that Web surfers' eyes have been trained to stop looking at
all places on pages that routinely carry advertising -- even if
the site they are on is ad-free.

Whoa.

So last weekend our Web designer Ryan took time out from his
heavy barbeque schedule to begin switching all the links on
MarketingSherpa sites from the right side to the left side.

Now we'll begin to track to see if it makes a difference or not
in clicks and conversions.

In the meantime, I'm wondering does this rule apply for HTML
email newsletter design too?? If you know, contact me.

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