Color is an immensely powerful tool. We respond to it on an emotional level. Red, for example, is widely seen as the color of passion, whereas it is well-known that pale green is calming, which is why so many hospital walls are painted pale, apple-green. Color psychology is a useful tool in website design and you can use it to influence your buyers. The trouble is that many website designers don’t give color a second thought. Instead, they pick a theme that looks pretty and then wonder why the website bounce rate is so high.
We all have our preferred colors. As you might expect, there are gender differences to take into account. The best color palettes tend to follow a pattern. Men seem to prefer blue whereas women like purple and pink. You can use color psychology to create a website that directly targets your customer. If you make the right color choices, you will positively influence consumers on a subliminal level, which should encourage them to make a purchase.
Color Psychology
Color psychology researchers have made a number of interesting findings. Firstly, and most importantly for the purposes of this article, visual appearance and color are the most important factors in retail. A staggering 93% of consumers look at the color and appearance of a product as part of the buying decision. Not surprisingly, you cannot afford to ignore this if you run an e-commerce website.
Researchers found that we associate certain colors with specific themes. For example, many luxury goods websites are designed using black as a primary color whereas purple is associated with anti-aging products. Green works well on websites selling health, wellness and organic products whereas pink is a common theme on websites marketing to younger women and girls.
Enticing Buyers
To be successful in online marketing, you need to understand your target client. This is basic stuff, but it is especially important in color psychology. As we have already mentioned, men and women are drawn to different colors, so a predominantly blue website selling beauty products to teenage girls is going to fall flat. Instead, a pink theme is more likely to attract young women and persuade them to buy. Grey is a serious color, which makes it a good choice for a B2B e-commerce website whereas the color brown has a dependable feel about it and when used in small amounts can boost conversions.
Buy it Now!
Some colors are more aggressive than others are. Red and orange are best used as a call to action buttons, such as ‘buy it now’ or ‘click here’. Yellow has a similar effect, but too much yellow in a website theme is off-putting.
As with online dating, in the world of e-commerce, looks count. Just over half of all buyers won’t return to a website if they don’t like the overall aesthetics. If you select the wrong colors in your theme, you could be unintentionally driving customers away. For an e-commerce website, this would be a disaster, so research color psychology before your website goes live.
