On the Web, content may be king, but image counts for a lot too. Researchers at Ottawa’s Carleton University determined that the brain takes only a twentieth of a second to judge a website upon first seeing a page.

So you really don’t get much of a chance to make that first impression. If you’re sporting one of those ugly cookie-cutter website designs, consider your efforts to be wholly wasted, even beyond the front-page/above-the-fold initial image:

The researchers also believe that these quickly-formed first impressions last because of what is known to psychologists as the “halo effect”.

If people believe a website looks good, then this positive quality will spread to other areas, such as the website’s content…

“Unless the first impression is favourable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors,” she warned.

Yes, it’s unfair to judge a book by its cover. But that’s life, online and off. If traffic, sales and any other metrics are important for your Web presence, you’ll have to do more than just fire up Frontpage and slap together some promo copy.