What to put above the fold

The area people see before scrolling gets about 80% of their attention. Everything below the fold splits the remaining 20%. That's not a design opinion. That's eye-tracking data from thousands of sessions.

Most pages waste this space. A hero image that says nothing. A tagline like "The platform for modern teams." A navigation bar with 8 items competing for attention.

What belongs above the fold: a headline that states the outcome, a one-line description of how, and one clear action. That's it. The headline does the selling. The description does the explaining. The button does the converting.

What doesn't belong: sliders, autoplay videos, stock photography, navigation dropdowns with 30 items, or "Welcome to our website." If it doesn't help someone decide to stay in the first 3 seconds, it's in the way.

The test is simple. Show your landing page to someone for 5 seconds. Then hide it. Ask them what the page is about and what they're supposed to do. If they can't answer both, your above-the-fold isn't working.