Recently, I’ve read a book called Made To Stick by Chip and Dan Heath – a book that theorizes which ideas are more likely to be remembered and engaging while other ideas are forgotten and dismissed. The authors propose that whatever your idea, your speech, or your presentation must include all of the following 6 key ingredients to be remembered by your audience: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Story (See the image above).

It was an enlightening book to say the least. If you are serious about improving the communication between your business and your customers, I highly recommend this book.

APPLYING THE 6 PRINCIPLES TO YOUR WEBSITE

The Heaths’ idea can be applied to a web design. The idea is, when you apply these 6 principles to your website, it will make your business more memorable and hopefully actionable, where it will encourage the visitors to take some sort of action based on what they saw on your website.

1. Make Your Website Simple

From our previous blog post, you know that people on the Internet are busy folks. They simply don’t like to read. Rather, they scan your page to see if they can extract bits and pieces of information that they’re looking for. So clean up your website. Simplify all the paragraphs into short yet profound sentences.

2. Unexpectedness can be found on the design

The web surfers of today are familiar with how the websites are supposed to look and behave. To create unexpectedness, you must design your website that is out of the ordinary, which usually involves using some extreme techniques (Think images outside the box, unbalanced contrast in colors, or creating a simpler than expected website, like our website, for example).

3. Don’t let your users guess what you’re trying to say.

Make all your messages concrete. In the advertising world, the thought-provoking ads are something of a trend (i.e. AT&T’s “Rethink Possible”). But what does that even mean? Go for more concrete messages like “We are the most affordable web developers in Spokane, WA” or “Get $300 in business for every $100 marketing dollar you spend with Tubird”.

4. Credibility

In terms of the web design, this means putting your clients list, testimonials, reviews, etc about your company. Publishing your company’s address, phone number, or any other contact information also says you have nothing to hide.

5.  Design your site to evoke emotions

We will write more on this subject as it can’t be summarized into a single paragraph. However, the idea is that you need to control the emotion of your visitors both with your content and with the design. If you own a spa business, for instance, you want to create a sense of serenity and calmness while a family restaurant should have a website that looks fun and happy.

6. Tell a Story

This can be in the form of doing case studies for your past clients, success stories of those who used your products. People will relate to your business much easier when they can identify their needs with others that have already gone through the same issue – and succeeded.

To summarize, it’s important to understand that designing a website isn’t just designing a site. It’s about making sure that once someone arrives to your website, your site will do its job of converting a lead into a customer. Applying these 6 principles of good web design will most certainly help lead you in the right direction.

We will write more on these principles in great detail later, so stay tuned if you’re looking for more “concrete” answers as to how you can apply these principles to your own website.

When designing a website for your small business, it’s important to think about how your visitors will interact with your website. Fact is, people don’t like to read while they’re researching a product or a service online, but they scan.

The heat map above illustrates this online behavior. When confronted with a website, most visitors will start scanning the page on a “F” shape-like pattern. From top left to bottom left and going left to right on paragraphs that may grab their attention. An average online user only spends about 4.4 seconds per 100 words on your website.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SITE

Based on the findings above, try to improve the website for your small business with the following principles:

- Minimize the scrolling on your website.
- Make sure to put your most important information “Above the fold”.
- Summarize each paragraph in one sentence in bold as a “heading”.
- Use bullet points

1. Focus on Your Products

People look for products or services online, not a specific business. Who cares if you are an honest, friendly business that has been serving the city of Spokane since the early 90′s? All the web users care about is do you sell the product or the service I’m looking for or not?

2. Focus on Your Location

Once your visitor confirms your business provides what they need, then they’ll need a way to contact your business. If you have a storefront, put a map of where you are with an address. If you’re a local business owner, writing additional information like “Next To The Best Buy” or “Across From The City Hall” will give your customers a better idea of where you are.

If you don’t have a storefront, then make sure to provide your email address, a phone number, and mailing address on the website.

3. Focus on The Unique Value Proposition

By Unique Value Proposition, we mean that you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors in a clear, concise writing to tell your visitors why they should buy the product or the service from you and not from the other guy.

4. Focus on The Credentials

Everyone suspects every website that there might be something wrong. That is to say that no one can trust the legitimacy of your business. If you’re associated with certain organizations, if you have testimonials from your other customers, put those information. Most importantly, design your site so that your business looks highly professional and trustworthy to your visitors.

To sum up, on the front page, don’t put paragraphs worth of your business’ information. Nobody cares. Instead, put some meaningful information about the products or the services you sell, how they can get them, and why they should get them from you. It’ll make a better use of your front page in a more relevant way to your visitors.