The 5 Second Rule: How to Know Whether Your Web site Is Losing You Sales

The 5-second rule goes past just food.

Germs only have 5 seconds to grab onto your food and you only have 5 second to grab someones attention!

Not 10. Not as long as they scroll.

Five.

In five seconds a stranger will decide to stay or explore and maybe become a customer… or they will hit the back button and forget you ever existed.

We call it The 5-Second Test and it is the quickest way of knowing whether or not your web site is silently killing your sales.

 What Is the 5 Second Rule?

It’s simple:

 Provide somebody who has never visited your site with your home page (or a critical landing page).

 Give them five seconds only to look.

 Then put three questions to them:

  1. Then what can we do?

  2. Who is it we are helping?

  3. Why are you expected to believe us and/or choose us?

And when they cannot answer them all three right without guessing, then congratulations you just found a leak in your sales pipeline.

 Why five seconds?

Everyone is online, no one reads, they scan.

People are not reading with a cup of tea in their hands enjoying your site. They stare, peep and make their decisions within a flash.

A research carried out by Nielsen Norman group shows that most users leave a site within 1020 seconds having no reason to stick around the site. It is a five second window in which your headline and visuals and structure needs to resonate.

 The Most Common reason for Websites collapsing

 1. Confusing or Vague Clever Headlines

When you see your hero section as saying, Empowering the Future of Tomorrow, you might think that it is inspirational.

Your visitor is wondering: “Uh… what do you do then?”

 Fix it: replace bright with transparent. Write in 10 words or less, what you do and to whom.

Example: We Can Triple the Foot Traffic of Local Cafes with the help of Digital Ads.

 2. Quite a number of Competing Visuals

That merry-go-round of five different flags? A stock handshake? The chance anima? Competition of all trying to gain attention.

 Fix it: Your overriding picture should support your heading at the time. Show how to use it in case you are selling an environmental-friendly cleaning product. Not generic families, abstract leaves.

 3. Awesome or Concealed Navigation

When you essentially have a buffet of 15 links on your menu people freeze.

They do not stay when you bury your contact button in the footer.

 Fix it: Top navigation must not be crowded  5-6 main choices only. And make your primary call (Book a Call, Shop Now, Get a Quote) clear.

 4. Not one of the Instant Credibility

Tourists are suspiciously suspicious. Unless you can find a way to give them a reason to do so promptly, they are not going to stay around waiting to be persuaded to trust you.

 Testimonial, client logo, As Featured In badge or trust signal above the fold. It is not boasting it is reassuring.

 Conducting 5-Second 'Rule' Test Yourself

1. Find some people who will not mind and who are ignorant of your business. The best ones are friends of friends.

2. Show them your homepage within five seconds. It covers it (after the timer.)

3. Run the three most vital questions.

4. Write the things they do not comprehend.

Those notes? That is action plan.

 Why this is a Good Test in sales

As it is not merely an issue of looking good  it is an issue of clarity and persuasion.

When a stranger cannot guess what you are talking after 5 seconds then your potential consumers will undoubtedly not wait to make sense out of it.

And how are you going to fix those first five seconds? Remarketing,  all the other marketing ads, SEO, email suddenly gets better. You no longer have people falling off, before you even start chatting.

 The Bottom Line

Your site can be beautiful but a beautiful site without clarity is just an ornament.

Today, perform the 5-Second Test.

Perfect your headline.

Punch your steering down.

Prove beforehand.

It may be a slight change that may amount to the difference between a bouncer and a buyer.

Five seconds decide whether someone stays or bounces. Don’t let your site waste them. Futuresmith can help you spot what’s not working and fix it fast. Let’s make your first impression count.

The clock is ticking. What will your five seconds say?