Will people scroll beyond the landing area of your web page? Research says yes!
Many of my web design clients have the impression that everything they want to say needs to be crammed in the landing area of their site. Now, let me be clear, you’re going to want something compelling and informative there.
You need to enable your end user to answer two subconscious questions: “What is this site?” and “Why should I stay?”. That doesn’t require throwing every option and facet of your business at them all at once. My clients get to that place on the assumption that end users will not scroll. Instinctively this feels wrong. One wonders how Facebook and Twitter would be so successful if people aren’t willing to scroll beyond the first post they see.
Interesting research by Rebecca Gordon at huge inc throws some light on this. Her research is really well written up, you should read it! The takeaway is, unless you shoot yourself in the foot, everybody scrolls.