Design Smarter: Why Above-the-Fold Doesn’t Mean What You Think

by Tom Snyder on May 02, 2025

I’ve Been on Both Sides

In nearly 30 years of building websites, at various times, I’ve been a vocal advocate for both sides of the “above-the-fold” debate.

Early on, I insisted that the most important messages, forms, and calls to action had to appear before the user had to scroll. Years later, I just as confidently argued that users do scroll, and the obsession with the “fold” was an outdated relic from the newspaper era.

Turns out… I was right both times. And I was wrong both times.

The truth? It depends. Not just on the device or the screen size, but on the user, the content, the traffic patterns, and the purpose of the page.

Still, every few years, this old debate gets dragged back out like a Facebook comment war: big bold declarations, the same tired talking points, and rarely any real data to back it up. But the real conversation shouldn’t be "should we put all the 'important stuff' above the fold—it should be what needs to be put there to achieve that page's strategic goals in the customer journey?
 

Why This Debate Keeps Coming Back

Every few years, someone writes a passionate take on why the fold doesn’t matter anymore. And it always gets traction. But most of those posts are just examples of design tribalism, filled with the same recycled talking points we’ve all heard before—without much actual data to back them up. No heatmaps. No A/B tests. No metrics from real users.

It starts to feel like one of those social media debates where people argue their position with sound bites instead of evidence.

That’s not how we work at Trivera.
 

What Our Team Sees Every Day

Jen Elias has spent years designing successful user experiences across dozens of industries. She put it best:

“I agree there’s no magical fold line—but I also try to keep massive hero images on homepages only. Most users hit the top nav and jump to what they’re looking for. I treat homepage heroes like billboards—quick attention-grabbers that say, ‘Here’s what we’re about.’ But on subpages, I use shorter headers so content doesn’t get buried.”

That’s not ideology. That’s experience. And it works.

Stephanie Senechal added a data-backed lens to the conversation:

“Yes and no—it depends on the page and the traffic. For smaller, low-traffic sites, the fold still matters more. But for high-traffic sites like the Potawatomi homepage, our heatmaps show user engagement all the way down. We even see clicks in the footer. But the bottom of the page still gets fewer impressions overall.”

She’s not wrong, and she’s not guessing. She’s got the heatmaps to prove it.

Stephanie shared a great example of turning insight into strategy. On the MMSD Rain Facility page, we wanted users to engage with content lower on the page, especially the section about facility capacity. Instead of rearranging the whole layout, the team added a button in the hero that anchors users directly to that section.

“It worked,” Steph said. “We increased engagement exactly where we wanted it.”
 

Forms, CTAs, and the Fold: What Actually Works

Let’s clear this up with some real talk and real data:

• Above-the-fold CTAs can convert better, but usually when there’s already intent (return visitors, PPC landing pages, newsletter signups, etc.).
• Longer consideration paths benefit from context. In those cases, asking too early can backfire.
• CrazyEgg and Hotjar show that while users do scroll, they still assign higher priority to what they see first.
• HubSpot found that moving a form higher on the page increased leads by 27%, but only when users already understood the value.

So what works?

• Slim heroes with value props + anchor links.
• Sticky headers or floating CTAs that follow the user.
• Scroll-triggered content to keep the experience dynamic.

We design to earn the click or the scroll. Not to meet someone else’s definition of best practice orthodoxy.
 

So... What’s Trivera’s Stance?

We don’t have a stance.

We have a strategy.

We design around data. Around user behavior. Around goals. We A/B test when we can. We heatmap when it matters. And we’re always willing to challenge our own assumptions if the results tell a different story.

Sometimes the form goes up top. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the CTA lives in the hero. Sometimes we send users on a journey first. But whatever the structure looks like, we’re not designing to win a debate, we’re designing to win trust, attention, and ACTION.

Because that’s the only part of the page that ever really matters.
 

About Tom Snyder

Tom Snyder, founder, president and CEO of Trivera, a 29-year-old strategic digital marketing firm based in suburban Milwaukee. Tom has been blogging since 1998, sharing the insight gained from helping businesses and organizations reinforce their brands by taking full advantage of digital, web and AI technology as powerful tactics.