First impressions are important - when you first see a city you’ve never been before, what do you notice? That’s right, the skyline. Similarly, the first thing you see in the newspaper is the headline and whenever you think of a TV show, you most likely think of the opening credits.

Everyone makes snap judgments about things based on this kind of first impression. Websites are no exception; what you see first on a website is the header at the top of the page.

Whether or not your content is as good as your header, visitors will tend to stick around when they see a good header on your site - because they will make that leap of logic. This leads to your readers sticking around longer and looking at your content. This means more traffic, recommendations and even links to your site!

While the content may or may not actually live up to the header, viewers will think so when they see a great header on a website. This assumption works to your benefit - your readers will stick around and check out your content. Hopefully they will find your content engaging as well, which will lead to more traffic to your site, word of mouth advertising for your site and even links to your site.

As you can see, the header does two very important things. Your visitors can get a quick idea of what kind of content your site offers, as well as giving a sort of gauge of the quality of your website overall.

Each of these functions are greatly important, but the second may be even more important than the first. There are millions of websites out there and possibly hundreds or thousands compete with yours. If the style or make-up of your header gives your website the look that it lacks quality or professionalism, your traffic will go to your competitors instead.

You may not realize exactly what is getting more traffic to your site and increasing the length of the stays of visitors to your site.

The fact that visitors stick around longer and come back more often will probably be chalked up to your content or another feature you’ve implemented on your site.