What is Above the Fold?
Above the fold refers to the portion of a web page visible without scrolling. Placing the value proposition and primary CTA above the fold ensures most visitors see them.
Why Above the Fold matters
The term comes from newspapers folded on a stand: what shows above the fold sells the paper. On the web it means the part of the page visible before scrolling, which varies by device but is always where attention is highest and patience is lowest. Most visitors do scroll, but they decide whether to scroll based on what they see first, so the value proposition, the primary call to action and a reason to believe belong there.
Above the fold is also a performance boundary. The browser should prioritise the resources that render this area (critical CSS, the hero image, the web font for the headline) and defer everything below it, which is what lazy loading and code splitting are for. A hero that takes four seconds to appear undoes the best copy.
Example
What a first screen on a phone needs to carry:
Headline that states the outcome (value proposition)
One line of support and one clear button (CTA)
One trust cue: rating, logo row or a numberRoughly 640 CSS pixels of height on a common phone: three elements, not seven.
Common mistakes
- •A full-screen hero image with the headline pushed below the fold on mobile.
- •A carousel of five messages so no single one lands.
- •Cookie banners and pop-ups covering the first screen before the visitor has read it.
How Webmatik checks it
Webmatik's CTA above the fold and Above-fold visuals checks are scored from the rendered screenshot at mobile and desktop widths, and the Hero section check in the UI/UX category reviews what the first screen communicates.
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