The difference between a visitor who stays and one who bounces often comes down to those first few seconds. Not because their attention span is shrinking (that's kind of a myth), but because they're becoming more efficient at filtering.
Your visitors are scanning your landing page, hunting for signals that you have what they need.
The difference between a visitor who stays and one who bounces often comes down to those first few seconds. Not because their attention span is shrinking (that's kind of a myth), but because they're becoming more efficient at filtering.
So the question isn't how to convince them into staying longer. It's how to design for the way they engage with your store pages.
Eye-tracking research gives us a map. Here's what it shows.
The left half of your page gets 69% of eye fixations. Nielsen and Pernice documented this in their eye-tracking research. Your perceptual span extends about 14-15 characters to the right when reading English.
Fixations last just 200-250 milliseconds (Keith Rayner, Psychological Bulletin, 1998).
Eye-tracking research shows users scan content-heavy pages in an F-pattern. So placing your primary CTA along these natural scanning paths, particularly at the endpoints on the right side or centre, increases visibility and captures attention when users are most ready to act.
So think about where you place your primary value proposition, CTA and the number of characters you’re using.
Understanding scanning patterns tells us where visitors look. But what should we show them when they get there?
Give visitors one clear primary action.
Multiple sources confirm reducing choice complexity and focusing on single CTAs improves conversion rates.
Emails with a single CTA can increase clicks by 371% compared to emails with multiple CTAs. Separately, personalising CTAs to visitor behaviour converts 42% more visitors into leads than generic CTAs (HubSpot, WordStream)
Herbert Simon discussed it in 1971. A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. Today that's exponentially more true.
In 2014 Media Dynamics told us we’re exposed to around 362 ads per day, with only 153 being "noted." Over a decade on that number will have grown.
There's another claim that gets repeated: our store visitors only have 6-8 seconds of attention online.
This idea comes from the "8-second attention span" claim in a 2015 Microsoft report. Problem is, it's been debunked. The BBC investigated in 2017 and found Microsoft couldn't provide a credible source. Fast Company published an article in 2024 titled "The 8-second attention span is BS." The original claim misinterpreted a study about how long people stay on web pages, not actual attention span.
But here's something that does hold up: the correlation between first 3-second attention scores and final performance metrics
In March 2022, Trinity McQueen partnered with the London School of Economics to publish a paper analyzing their advertising testing archive. They found 72% of ads showed strong correlation between attention scores in the first 3 seconds and final performance metrics.
Those first 3 seconds are key.
High-contrast is standard practice, though specific metrics vary by context. Test this one. On brand.
Less is more. Minimalist design works because when cognitive demands are low and visual distractors are minimal, users can focus on our conversion goal.
Each element we include should actively move visitors toward conversion.
Our working memory handles about 3-4 chunks of information at once.
George Miller established the foundation for this understanding in 1956, though modern research by Nelson Cowan (2001) refined the number downward from Miller's original 7±2.
Wang et al.'s 2014 study in Decision Support Systems used eye-tracking to show that complex websites increase cognitive load, reducing task completion rates.
So when you're reviewing your page, count the elements. If something isn't actively moving visitors toward conversion, remove it.
Start with your product page or homepage. Where are your visitors looking first?
