Recent studies from web guru Jakob Nielson show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern. In Jakob Nielson's new eye-tracking study, http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/ it was recorded how 232 users looked at thousands of Web pages. The study found that users' main reading behavior was fairly consistent across many different sites and tasks. This dominant reading pattern looks somewhat like an F and has the following three components:

• Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F's top bar.
• Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F's lower bar.
• Finally, users scan the content's left side in a vertical movement. This last element forms the F's stem.

The reality of the matter is that most of your valuable content is going to be overlooked by users. This is why it is so important to make an impact on your readers in the first few lines of text. The longer you can hold their interest the further they will read. Make sure that you keep to the point, do not veer off topic, and use descriptive words. Test your content on friends and family for input. Just because you think its relevant doesn't mean that your users will.