Will Website Color Psychology Translate Into More Sales, Higher Page Views, And A Larger More Loyal Audience?
When you pick the colors for you blog or website is it simply a matter of choosing colors that you like or is website color psychology something you need to take into consideration? Will the colors that you decide on really matter? Are the viewers of your site going to have a different experience based on the color palette that you display? The short is answer to these questions is yes. The long answer is also yes!
You most certainly can expect a certain emotional response based on the colors that pop up on the computer screen. There is no doubt that different colors and matching of colors will have people feeling differently about their emotions.
We learn at an early age that money is green, but in our mind the color green does not just represent money. No the color green triggers a thought process that envelopes greed, envy, and jealousy. Have you ever heard the saying, "Green with envy"? When choosing colors that will be associated with your company you must be careful. The colors that you choose will have a measurable effect on how potential consumers of your information or products will perceive a variety of different aspects of your offerings.
The internet has proven both a boom and a bane when it comes to the selection of colors. When once there was just a few colors to choose from, there are now literally hundreds, thousands, and millions of colors available. Advances in computers, technology, and the transport of ideas over the net make the selection process a much more complicated endeavor. With so many colors to choose from how in the world are you to make a choice?
We will try to give you a easy to follow road map that you can use to understand the elementary concepts involved with the choosing of colors.
Every person reacts differently to every color under the rainbow. Some colors will trigger a positive emotional response in one person while the same color will trigger a negative set of emotions. Different colors mean different things to different people. The trick is to get a grasp of what different colors will mean to the consumers of your products. It comes down to making sure that the color choices that you make for your online media will capture the audience that you are going after.
Color psychology testing has shown that the most popular color for consumer products is red. Take a look in your kitchen cabinets, your office cafeteria, or in any restaurant. You will see red everywhere. Maybe you haven’t noticed it before but it is there. You are probably asking yourself why red is so popular when it comes to consumer products. For most people the color red is a very emotional color. There have been scientific studies that show that the color red has a definite impact on people’s heart rate and blood pressure.
Red does exactly what any business selling a product would want it to do. It makes us focus our attention on it, causes us to act, and therefore it is a commanding color for the packaging of a product.
There are three categories that all colors will fit into: cool, warm and neutral. It wouldn’t make sense for you to pick all the colors for a products packaging from just one category. It is better to have a primary category with subordinate colors from other categories. This mixing of colors is best known as a color mix.
Certain colors work better with other colors to create desired emotions. Only after examining many color combinations will you be able to determine which colors you should put with one another. There is no set in stone color combination that is going to work for your website. What is of vast importance is that you understand what color and color combinations will be right for your target audience and not what you like or think is best. In the end you are going to want your audience to buy your product. So their opinion and emotional bonding with the colors of your site should carry a lot of weight when it comes down to color choices that will be made.
Luckily there are certain components that will clue you in on which colors your target group will be attracted to. The breakdown of the factors that you need to pay attention to are: age, class, gender, and color trends.
Age-The difference in age is of the utmost importance. This is probably the one area that you can’t ignore for any reason. The younger your audience (children and adolescents) the more they will be drawn to bright colors like red, blue, green, and yellow. Color mixing works really well within the younger age groups.
On the other hand if your audience falls into a older age group, then muted, darker colors, and neutral colors will become more prominent.
Class-You shouldn’t overlook class differences when choosing colors. It is really interesting to note that blue collar workers and non-professionals prefer colors that are more common like blue, red, green.
People that have achieved a higher degree of education are more apt to choose taupe, azure, celadon, salmon.
Sex-There is also a difference in preferences between males and females. Males are more drawn to blues and greens, while females seem to cozy up to reds and oranges…warmer color tones in general.
If your core audience is made up of males and females then you will need to mix warm colors with cool colors. Your objective is to make everyone viewing your site comfortable. This is really the essence of website color psychology.
Trends-Color trends can best be described by what is "in" or current at the moment. If you are marketing products that are time sensitive and immediate, then using popular colors make sense. On the other hand if your planning a long range campaign that can last years then popular colors should not be played up.
A better strategy would be to revert back to using the more traditional and time tested colors that have a record of standing up over a longer period of time. Do not carried away with what colors you think looks good. Website Color Psychology is not about you…It is about your customers and potential customers.
Understanding your core audience and understanding the way color can have an effect on them will point you in the right direction when it comes to getting your message across.
There is one last item that you should keep in mind when it comes to color on the web. Internet surfers all use different types of computers that contain different video cards. It would be absurd to expect that all colors look exactly the same on all computers. This should not be a concern of yours. All you need to be concerned with is remaining consistent. It is the consistent use of the same colors for your brand and product that will help develop trust.
There is a direct relationship that exists between the colors that are used on a website and the colors that are used on a brochure. Both types of media attempt to get the consumer to warm up to a brand and then ask for a call to action. It would be wise to study color patterns on brochures.
Website Color Psychology is just one aspect of a broad range of considerations you must take into account when designing a marketing program on the web.