I recently read a digest of an eye-tracking study by a company called Mirametrix.  This type of study is done by a device that can track where a subjects eye’s move over a web page as they look at it, and it generates a “heat map” that shows what is viewed and for how long.  If you test enough subjects, you get a good idea of how the average person takes in all of the visual information on the page.

In the past, this has given us the typical “F” pattern that, by now, I suspect everyone has seen.  The graphic heat map shows brighter on those areas that are most viewed, and then trails off to nothing on areas which are not viewed at all.  The brightest part of the chart is always at the upper left corner (which is natural for those of us who read left-to-right).  This is also where the first search result can be found in a search list.  Then the map extends to the upper right, as the viewer glances over to the top right to check out the top paid result, then down to the second line on the left, and over to the right of that.  Then the viewer will scan down the left side of the page to see the other results, which trail off in brightness as the list goes on.

By the bottom of the page, the map shows a very faint image, meaning many of the test subjects never got that far.  This “F” pattern has been very consistent with text-based search results, and is the reason that web marketers go to such lengths to be at the top of the search results page.

The interesting thing in this new study was that when the test involved text and images (thumbnails of pictures or video), the pattern turned out to be very different, with the hottest area of the resulting heat map being over the imagery, even when it was in the middle or the bottom of the page.  So the “F” pattern was no longer the result, and depending on how the images were arranged, they determined where the subject’s eyes went and spent the most time.   This a bit of a game-changer.

People like pictures, it seems, more than plain text.  This shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, but it does have interesting ramifications on how to attract attention on the ever-more-crowded web.  Video makes a big difference, especially now that Google and others are including video thumbnails in their search results.  One could  argue that if your site doesn’t include video (or at least some stills that will turn up as thumbnails), you are lagging behind other online marketers, and getting lost in the visual noise on the results page.

There were a couple of interesting statistics thrown around last week by speakers at the MIMA Summit.  One was that only 2% of visitors to an ecommerce site made a purchase.  But the same speaker also pointed out that the click-through rate for videos was around 80%.  People like to see what the video is about.  Of course they may be disappointed and leave before completing it (check your bounce rate), but at least they give it a look.  In order to keep them watching, and deliver some value, the videos need to be useful to them (entertaining, informative, beautiful, or temporally relevant, as my earlier post suggests).  If the consumer watches the video, it’s likely that 2% conversion rate can be improved on.  And if it’s really cool, you may even get some free exposure to that viewer’s social connections, through earned media, which is what everyone hopes will happen.

There’s one more statistic I heard recently, that is interesting, and this one comes from a report on online video by Brightcove.  They claim that a site with video on it is 52 times more likely to wind up on the first page of search results than one without.  I can’t say how they came to that conclusion, or vouch for the accuracy of their study, but if it’s even close to the truth, it a pretty impressive advantage.

The take-away is that if you’re not serving up engaging video content as part of your on-line marketing, then you’re losing out on one of the most powerful ways to attract and influence an audience on-line.  And it’s become so easy to add video to a web site now, that there’s no excuse not to do it.  If you don’t have anyone in-house who can make that happen, get in touch with me.  I’d be happy to help.