If you have been designing your Web site with style over substance, you may be making a mistake. According to an independent study performed by the Poynter Institute called "Eyetrack," consumers are proving to behave differently online than they do offline.

According to the study, consumers have one set of behaviors when reading print medium and do just the opposite online in some cases. For example, consumers online tend to look most intently at text in search of meaningful textual information. Offline, readers will typically hop from photo to photo before grazing on the stories.

The research centered on 67 online news consumers representative of three metro areas: Chicago, St. Petersburg, Florida and San Francisco/San Jose which were equipped with tiny video headsets capable of tracking where the subjects looked on the computer screen. Movements were recorded to a database. The subjects were allowed to look at whatever they chose to, including their personal bookmarks.

The subjects viewed a total of 211 unique news sites and 6,000 pages, over an elapsed time period of 40 hours. The average news surfing session was six sites in 34 minutes, and the average number of news sites visited during that time.

Researchers recorded 608,063 "eye fixations," the length of time a subject's eye focuses on a single point for at least 1 1/10 of a second. That is the length of time it takes for the brain to comprehend the information.

Research is only beginning to unravel the mysteries of the online consumer, but tests such as Eyetrack indicate a few points to consider. At an average of five and a half minutes, Web readers aren't spending long at one site.

News rules. News briefs were looked at 82% of the time, and the news stories were read 92% of the time. While the test subjects searched immediately for headlines, news briefs and captions, they only looked at photos afterward, and then only at 64% of available photos. Only 22% of graphics registered as "eye fixations." This was in spite of the fact that the surfers were on a high-speed bandwidth and photos and graphics were able to load quickly.

In a surprising counter-trend, the study said that banner ads did well, and were seen 45% of the time by the test subjects.

Although the study tracks the habits of news readers, it is only a short leap to other types of information-rich sites such as those provided by Realtors. What can a Realtor do to make their sites more interesting to viewers? The following list offers some suggestions based on other conclusions of the Eyetrack study.

Add daily real estate news to your site. Readers have been shown to read 75% of the story online and less than 25% of the story in the print medium, so if they go to your site seeking information, they will stay longer and return more often.

Stick to serious text. Although readers appreciate a clever wit, they tend to seek specifics. Save the reader time and deliver the goods.

Use photos wisely. The study concluded that pleasure browsing is less common than specific information seeking and gathering, so photos and graphics may be of less importance than you may think. On-screen photos are generally small, and the typical screen resolution is only 72 dpi, making photos less compelling for online readers. Photos should be high-impact, as readers will ignore routine shots, so crop those head shots tightly. If you have homes on your site, augment the photos with clear, concise, and descriptive text. Remember, it is better to have two or three shots of a single feature than to run a large photo with a lengthy download which may lose resolution on the reader's screen anyway.

Use headlines and headers to advantage. Introduce new topics with newspaper-like headlines and headers so that the reader can get from one topic to another easily. You can also track which information is most useful to your consumer if the information is divisible.

Watch the grammar. Good writing is important to readers who do not wish to be distracted with poor punctuation, typos and other errors. Ditto for dead links.

Easy navigation rules over content. Readers will actually visit other sites with recognizably poorer content if the navigation is easier. That means, surprise, it's okay to have your reader scroll in preference to click-through in some cases. Just make sure your content is grouped into effective categories.

Published: May 4, 2000

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Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. For more articles by Blanche, click here.