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Colour is often
overlooked in the business of optimising websites for better returns.
Website sales can be greatly affected by simply changing its colours. Ever
come across a website that uses a weird combination of print and
background colours? If you ever want to experience an eye-twisting
headache, try reading yellow print on a blue background. The reason you
see black type or dark blue, dark green or dark red on a white background
so much is that it is the best colour combination for reading, both on and
offline.
And since it is even
harder to read text on a monitor than it is on paper, we must all be
especially careful with the colours we choose for our websites, or suffer
less-than-optimal site traffic and repeat visitors.
Colour choice should
also be dictated by other, less obvious goals, when designing or
re-vamping a website. It's important to realise that different colours
invoke different emotions, are associated with specific concepts and say
different things in each society. For instance, green is often associated
with freshness or money, which is fairly obvious if you think about it.
But every colour does this, and some of the emotions and concepts are more
subtle. For example, white means pure, easy, or goodness and purple can be
associated with royalty or sophistication. What's more, each colour
carries with it both positive and negative ideas. The emotions and
concepts that you associate with specific colours may differ from other
people's associations, but there are themes that run throughout each
colour. Here are some:
Red:
Positive: Sense of power, strength, action, passion, sexuality. Negative:
Anger, forcefulness, impulsiveness, impatience, intimidation, conquest,
violence and revenge.
Yellow:
Positive: Caution, brightness, intelligence, joy, organization,
springtime. Negative: Criticism, laziness, or cynicism.
Blue:
Positive:
Tranquillity, love, acceptance, patience, understanding, cooperation,
comfort, loyalty and security. Negative: Fear, coldness, passivity and
depression .
Orange:
Positive:
Steadfastness, courage, confidence, friendliness, and cheerfulness,
warmth, excitement and energy. Negative: Ignorance, inferiority,
sluggishness and superiority.
Purple:
Positive: Royalty,
sophistication, religion. Negative: Bruised or foreboding.
Green:
Positive: Money,
health, food, nature, hope, growth, freshness, soothing, sharing, and
responsiveness. Negative: Envy, greed, constriction, guilt, jealousy and
disorder.
Black:
Positive: Dramatic,
classy, committed, serious. Negative: Evil, death, ignorance, coldness.
White:
Positive: Pure, fresh,
easy, cleanliness or goodness. Negative: Blind, winter, cold, distant.
A major goal of marketers is to invoke emotion in their audience.
We know that if we can cause some kind of an emotional reaction in the
people we are marketing to and communicating with, we have a better chance
of compelling them to buy from us. The battle between logic and emotion
that rages in each of is usually won by emotion. As a general rule
of thumb, when Oak Web Works designs websites, one primary colour and one
secondary or complimentary colour will be chosen. These colours are based
on the specific audience and market of our client and the messages the
client wants to communicate to the rest of the world. If more than two or
three colours are used, things tend to look a little messy, and the power
of any one colour is diluted too much, so we most often stick with two
colours. However, if the client already has an established brand, we will
always make sure to match the colours of the website with the original
colours of the company. It is not wise to have print collateral material
one colour and the website a totally unrelated colour.
About The Author. Jason O’Connor owns and
operates Oak Web Works, LLC - The synthesis of Web marketing, design, and technology. Jason is an expert at Web design, programming, e-strategy, and e-marketing. |
