F-SHAPED PATTERN FOR SEOs: How Users Scan Webpages

Eye-tracking technologies have been used since long to understand user focus behavior and attention span when it comes to visual display. Eye tracking technology has advanced itself enough to tell you what people look at, for how long, in what sequence and why so. It was in use for electronic control panel designs for airplanes and similar purposes with recent prime addition being website designs.

It is important for a SEO practitioners to be aware of  human behaviors and how users interact with websites. 

With prolonged usage, users have become smarter and learnt how to look for the information. Users are most likely to skip the advertisements, pay little attention to the paid advertisement even if they are relevant and are prone to move away if the information displayed is not organic.Modern user is technology savvy and has information a click away. Given users attention span is less, if appropriate information that user is looking for is not displayed in the focus area, he is most likely to stray.

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant - Mitchell Kapor

Based on multiple studies conducted on various websites, it is well known that users are most likely to create 'F-Shaped' pattern with their eye movement. This of course when the pages are in English, the languages which reads from right to left will have different results. 'F' pattern is a most important input to SEO practitioner to design the website and content to hold the attention of user and keep users engaged.

Left diagram shows how users eyes pays attention on a webpage based on focus priorities. The focus priority is in the form of a 'F' shape. Red area shows where user is most likely to pay more attention while green area shows the least priority focus area.

However, when user is engaged and finds useful information, he is most likely to have longer attention span and would give importance to the drilled down content. Which mean 'F' pattern is observed only until user attention is grabbed and once user find what he wants, he is most likely to focus more evenly.

It will be safe to say 'F' Pattern is followed mostly on the home page of a website, or search result pages where importance is given to the top search results.

SEO Practitioners can use this information to identify potential opportunities to optimize the website design. Eye tracking and heat map information can also be used to validate the optimized design is working as expected and user attention is grabbed for longer duration.