Do your website colors help, or hurt, your sales?

The colors of your website are important because they define the mood and the emotions of your visitors as well as reflect your identity and image branding.

When most people design a website, they give all their attention to the graphics and the content. But what about the colors? Many people just pick their favorite color and forget about it.

That's a mistake, because color is the single greatest way to influence your viewers. You can have a beautiful layout and a host of great features, but if the colors are not "right" it can cancel out any positive impressions your viewers may make. Sometimes the right color choices can even overcome flaws in website design.

Research reveals all human beings make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment, or item within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.
  (Source: Institute for Color Research)

Ask yourself this: What subconscious judgments do people make when visiting my website? Are my colors attractive? Do they motivate -- or do my colors actually result in lost sales?

  Choosing the color scheme for your website

There is a huge difference between a personal and a business website. With a personal website, you can do whatever you like. But business, especially e-commerce, is entirely different.

In subtle ways your colors "Set the Mood" and either invite people to stay on your website, or they push them away. Make sure the mood you set is the right one for your target audience.

Here is a good article -- Setting the Mood with Color. (This article also links to other articles on the psychology of color and complimentary and contrasting colors.)

Different colors and what they may mean to your visitors.

"Warm" Colors

Red: Red is one of the most powerful and attention-getting colors. Red reflects energy and can motivate an individual to take action. Red symbolizes passion and fire, love and lust. It has even been proven to raise blood pressure and cause perspiration. It can symbolize war, violence, blood, and aggression.

Pink: Pink is romantic, calming and feminine, it is the 'softer side' of red.

Orange: Orange is vibrant and warm and shares many of the traits of red, but is less passionate. Orange is often associated with autumn, pumpkins and Halloween. It has been known to stimulate the appetite, and as a citrus color it can also symbolize health.

Yellow: Yellow symbolizes sunshine and warmth. It can mean hope, light and energy. On the other hand, it can mean weakness or illness, or symbolize cowardice.

"Cool" Colors

Green: Green signifies health, growth and wealth. Green symbolizes spring, renewal, and fertility. It can also mean jealousy and/or inexperience.

Blue: Blue is one of the most calming colors and is associated with the sky and the sea. It is considered to be a "safe" color and signifies intelligence, reassurance, and trust. Blue has also been known to be an appetite suppressant and can signify depression and sadness.

Purple: Purple symbolizes creativity. Purple is spiritual and mysterious. Deep purple is associated with royalty and richness while lavender is associated with romance and nostalgia.

"Neutral" Colors

Black: Black can represent power, elegance, and sophistication, but it can also represent death (in Western culture), evil, anger and sadness.

White: White represents cleanliness, purity, and spirituality. It represents life and marriage in Western cultures, but it represents death in Eastern cultures.

Grey: Grey is a conservative color. Grey can symbolize security, maturity and reliability, but it can also signify gloominess and sadness.

Brown: Brown is a "special" color, it often represents credibility and stability, home and hearth. Sometimes brown in the "Earth Tones" range can be used as a warm color rather than neutral.

Bright colors get noticed -- that's why traffic caution signs are yellow and fire extinguishers are red. They get noticed. BUT -- too much bright color is tiring to your eyes, so use them to emphasize important points or as a 'Call to Action', but not for large areas.

Different types of color combinations.

"Monochromatic" schemes use a single color. Such schemes are harmonious and peaceful. Using a single color reduces distractions and promotes better concentration on your content.

"Analogous" color combinations use colors that are related, but not the same. A selection of blues and purples, or reds and oranges create an analogous color scheme.

"Contrasting" schemes use colors that are opposites to create attractive color schemes. For example, yellow and purple or red and green are contrasting colors. Contrasting color schemes generally use a warm color and a cool color. Beige and light blue or maroon and forest green contrast nicely and create very nice combinations.

One thing to keep in mind when using contrasting schemes -- the human eye has difficulty focusing on contrasting colors at the same time, so orange words on a blue background is very fatiguing to read. Text should always be easy to read, or people won't read it.

"Triadic" color combinations use three opposing colors. Red, yellow, and blue would be a triadic color scheme. It is not necessary to use bright tones to create an attractive triadic color scheme. Using pastel shades of one or more colors can help create harmony and increase readability of your text.

  What color scheme should you use?

Without an in-depth survey of your specific target audience about the colors appropriate for your website theme, a certain amount of common sense is needed. Bright primary colors are fine for a children's theme, but won't work as well for a website aimed at their parents.

Colors affect people psychologically -- they can make us happy, excited, angry or sad. Colors are also symbolic. Someone who is jealous is described as "Green with envy". A sad person is said to "Have the Blues". A coward is a "Yellow-Belly", and anger makes us "See Red".

Look around at the colors on other websites. Make notes of what you like and don't like about them. Look at the world around you... there are pleasant color combinations all around.

You may want to look at Color Schemer Studio for PC or Mac, with a number of tools and color utilities to help you find the perfect website color scheme. (free to try, 49.99 to buy)

Here is a free online tool that will also help.

How do you know if your new colors are working? One way is to keep an eye on your access logs -- if the time-on-site and the page-views-per-visitor numbers go up, then the change is working. Another indication is, of course, more sales and bigger paychecks.... and that will make all the work worthwhile.

To Your Success!
Tim

By Tim Brown © 2006. About the author: Tim is the webmaster at http://BLT-Web.com, where webmasters can find free tools, advice, tips and other useful resources designed to help them build a successful website.

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