Real size versus mental size in web pages.

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What is truly sad about the increase in billboards, neon signs and boom boxes in our browsers is that web consumers will do what we as drivers are doing: tune them out. We'll get soundproof cars with tinted windows; we'll only go to places we know for a fact can provide us with what we want, and we'll only get out of the car if we know what we want can be had when we want it. Ouch!

Real size versus mental size
Humans conceive of size using several criteria, two of which always come to the surface: physical space and how much attention we give that space over time.

People are familiar with broad expanses and beautiful vistas. The sheer physical size of the view affects people. However, real size and mental size are different. Things will always loom larger mentally if the amount of time an individual spends looking at it increases. What we focus our attention on looms larger in our consciousness than what we don't focus our attention on (traumatic events, of course, are the exception to this rule).

What does all this have to do with marketing?
I've written in several places about how people scan information, where their eyes fall and so on. The key to making your portlets attract and keep visitors' attention is to first determine which screen position best gets your portlets' message across. This is going to play big in ad positioning and microsite development.

Ad positioning, obviously, deals with which screen area gets your message across best: microsites need to pay particular attention to this because, moving forward, each portlet is going to be a microsite on a company's "web page".

The key to making your content loom large in a visitor's consciousness -- especially in the new internet real estate economy -- is understanding presentation.

Ultimately, you want visitors to turn away from their browsers remembering what was in your portlet, not your neighbor's. This means knowing where to place things -- remember the old realtor's mantra, "Location! Location! Location!" -- for maximum exposure and which messaging methodology -- billboard, neon sign or boom box -- to use to lock that presentation into the visitor's memory.

Joseph Carrabis is CRO and founder of NextStage Evolution and NextStage Global, and founder of KnowledgeNH and NH Business Development Network. He is also author of the Biz Media Science blog. Read full bio.