Above the Fold
Above the fold refers to the portion of a web page that is visible without scrolling, considered the most valuable real estate because it's what users see first.
The term 'above the fold' originates from newspapers, where the most important headlines were placed above the physical fold of the paper. In web design, it refers to the content visible in the browser viewport before the user scrolls. This area varies based on the user's device, screen size, and browser configuration.
Users form an opinion about your website within 50 milliseconds, based entirely on what they see above the fold. This content must communicate your value proposition, establish credibility, and encourage scrolling or action. From a performance perspective, optimizing above-the-fold content is key to good Core Web Vitals scores.
In practice
- A SaaS homepage moved their primary CTA from below the fold to above it and saw click-through rates increase by 40%
- A landing page optimized their above-the-fold hero image (from 3MB JPEG to 150KB WebP) and improved LCP from 4.5 seconds to 1.2 seconds
- A B2B company's above-the-fold content had a corporate stock photo and vague tagline, replacing it with a clear value proposition and product screenshot increased demo requests by 25%
- An e-commerce site ensured product images appeared above the fold on mobile by reducing their header height, decreasing the bounce rate on product pages by 12%
Not sure how this applies to you?
A senior engineer walks your site, your search presence and the way enquiries reach you, then writes down the three things worth fixing first. You keep the document either way.