Addressing the Canny Investor

Let’s face it, the web is made up of millions and millions of web sites all trying to get your attention - or better yet, to get you to remember them and revisit their site. So with the crowded nature of the web, how can you make your visitors remember your site after they leave?

According to traditional research, we know that people tend to remember the first and last things that they see in a sequence, and don’t remember much about what was in the middle. Translate that into building your web site, and it means that your home page should be fun, interesting, attractive, or in some way memorable. (Visitors can jump off your site at any point, so there’s no way to tell what the “last” impression will be.)

People also tend to process information in small “segments,” typically three or four segments at a time. For example, a catchy slogan or a great web address will be memorable long after the visitor has left your site. The web address www.ford.com or www.makeup.com kind of sums it all up, right?

Slogans and jingles are also good ways to include memorable segments on your web site. How many of you know what product is “good to the last drop”? Do you know which company encourages us to “just do it”?
Information seems to stay with us when the items are repeated, using clever ways to say the same thing by using your logo, graphics, headlines, etc. Information re-circulates through our short-term memory when we see it over and over. The more your web visitors see the information, the more they will remember it. Just be sure to vary how you present the information so the message is consistent but not annoying.

So when thinking about what type of an impression your web site makes on your visitors, be sure to make it memorable in some way. Do the thinking ahead of time for your visitors, so all they notice is a great, memorable web site.

Lauren Hobson is the Editor of Biz Talk Newsletter, a free monthly publication designed to provide small businesses and non-profits with tips and techniques to help them make the most of their web sites and marketing efforts without spending a lot of money. Biz Talk is published by Five Sparrows, LLC.