When meeting new people, first impressions are important. How people look, the way they act, how friendly and helpful they are all influence your decision whether or not to interact with them.

The same holds true for web pages. In fact, first impressions are even more important when people land on your web page. That’s because visitors will make judgments about the credibility of your web page in as little as 50 milliseconds after they land there.

And one out of every five people who visit your website will leave and never come back.

The First Crucial 10 Seconds

There are two primary questions people ask themselves when landing on a new website:

1. Is it safe?
2. Does it provide specifically what I’m looking for?

If a website doesn’t seem safe — in other words if people fear their laptop, smartphone, or another device might become infected by a virus or their personal data may be stolen — they will jump off instantly. With so much malware out there, it’s a legitimate concern.

Similarly, most internet users today don’t have the patience to waste time with a website that isn’t exactly what they are looking for. Within 10 seconds, visitors are likely to size up your web page and decide if you are giving them what they want. If not, they will click off and likely never return.

First Impressions Critically Important for Websites – Testing Your Web Pages

That’s why it’s a good idea to continually test your web pages to see how it measures up to these two questions. Test it yourself using different devices than the ones you usually use.

Plus, you want to have other people test your websites as well. Ask friends or co-workers to give you their initial impressions. Or incentivize your customers to respond to a brief survey to share their thoughts.