Every website has hotspots. I've spent several hours reading eyetracking studies, heatmap studies, and you name it studies. All of these studies show that websites have certain hotspots in common. I'm not going to link to these studies and let you run off and confuse yourself with a lot of contradictions. I'm going to point out some of the things that are the most important and I'll start with getting visitors to look at your site in the first place.
Good Headlines
This is a no-brainer. If you write good, short and succinct page titles, those are the items that are going to draw people in from search engines, feedreaders and social sites.
Other headlines are those that separate your pages into parts. They're just as important. People have a tendency to scan for relevant information before reading and these headlines can guide them to the exact parts they want to read.
Headlines within the content can be slightly (maybe 1 or 2 pixels) larger than the content that follows, but size isn't the factor you should concentrate on. Bold and/or italicized text stands out more, even when it's the same size.
Text Vs. Images
All of the studies indicate that text is read long before images are even looked at. If you want to use images, however, use large images. I'm not talking about the banner ads. Visitors have programmed themselves, probably unintentionally, to ignore most banner ads. My own experience and reading thousands of comments from other blog authors tells me that text link ads (like Google AdSense) are being largely ignored for the same reason.
Sidebar Links
If you want your visitors to focus on specific links, you have to do something to make them stand out. Making them larger and using odd fonts is not the answer. Making them bold and/or italicized is. You can even change to a different color, one that blends with the others, and make them appear more prominent. Widget titles are largely ignored, so you shouldn't waste too much time trying to dress them up.
Hotspots
The heatmaps and eyetracking studies show that people generally view a website in the shape of an "F", starting with the upper left corner and ignoring the header (at least at first). Then the eyes move from there to the right, back to the left at about the center of the page, to the right again, then to the bottom left of the page (the visible page) and to the right and then up to the top again. Most people aren't compelled to move down, below the fold, unless something in the text interests them.
Summary
As with anything, your mileage may vary. If you simply must read more in-depth articles, the post at Asian Ramblings will lead you to one article which will lead you to even more. Prepare to be busy for a few hours if you read it all.
My experience with this blog has shown me that most of the items in the studies apply to it. In fact, the only reason I haven't followed some of the suggestions is because, while I like to write, I don't like to optimize. I'm lazy. Still, I know I need to make a few minor changes to the sidebars and spend more time formatting the content to make it more readable.
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This article is published as: Hotspots and Readability
It is a good article, RT. I learned a fair bit designing newspaper pages. I need to learn a little more about PHP, WordPress, and other nifty stuff to put it all into practice.
Thanks for this link.
Another good idea will be to write a brief introduction in one para at the beginning of each post and clearly state what a reader can and can not expect from that page.
If the first line indicates that I'll get what I'm looking for (or something that interests me) chances are that I'll read further.
Else if I feel after reading first paragraph the contents are unlikely to be useful/interesting to me (if I dotn get an assurance that they will be at least)I may close the page without reading till end.
I didn't want to rewrite everything I read but you're right. You have to capture interest in the first paragraph if you want your article read.
I agree about using good headlines. Sometimes people just use headings that continue to mystify me when I look at it in isolation from the post (from live bookmarks, for instance), even after reading the post several times.
About the rest, I'm not too sure. I don't think the whole thing can be made as scientific as all that. Each individual computer user has their own peculiar quirks. To me, if the information found on the website is useful enough, I will tolerate bad design or in extreme cases simply turn of CSS rendering (and thus make the text flow normally).
These studies point to the majority of visitors, not to all of them. Different demographics are sure to read in other ways. The more geeky you are (and I didn't call you geeky, Hari), the more likely you won't be one of the majority. :-)
That's right. It's hard to judge one's own design because we're intimately familiar with it. That's why a third party evaluation is so crucial in web design or any kind of design, for that matter.
This is good stuff for me to be reading right now. Maybe I can get some redesign in if I move our blog.
As you probably already know, Ernie and I love to think up strange, mystifying headlines. Maybe it isn't the best to grab attention, but we enjoy it, so we probably will continue just for our own amusement.
Good luck on the move. I hope it doesn't cause too many problems for you.
I think hotspots are a necessary consideration in placement of key components in the design although its the call to action and the value proposition that makes the sell.