The web experts since 1999
The web experts since 1999
If you're a business owner or a decision-maker within your company, you'll probably find yourself having to contend with the development of a new website at some point in time. Luckily, many experienced web agencies or freelancers are available to guide you through this daunting process and produce results tailored to your needs and those of your customers. As with many things in life, what you get out of your new website is only as good as what goes into it, so it's essential to spend some time getting things right.
A new website may conjure up thoughts and ideas about its content, such as the words making up each page of your site and any associated imagery or video. You may also think about products if you're planning to sell online and even about the general design, layout and user experience, but what about colour? Did you know the colour scheme used throughout your site can impact hugely on statistics such as bounce rates, time-on-page and even conversions?
You can use colours for many things on your website, from conveying emotion, picking out call-to-actions and even altering a user's psychological state.
The primary aim of colour within a website is to make it visually appealing to the user. Your visitors will be more inclined to click the back button and continue to a competitors website without a visually appealing design and colour scheme in place.
Once you've convinced a user to stick around for a while, then the secondary use of colour should be aimed at improving your conversion rates. Simply changing the colour of an add to basket button or a call-to-action can see conversions skyrocket, which is why so many large corporations spend huge sums on research into colours and their impact on user experience.
It's the big question on everyone's lips if colour is so essential then which should I choose? Sadly, there is no one size fits all answer to this question, and the colours that work best for you and your website will depend on many factors, including your target demographic, the industry you're operating in and even the time of year.
With this in mind, when you understand the fundamentals behind colour psychology, it is easier to make educated guesses which you can test in real-world situations.
As mentioned previously, you can use colour psychology to make educated guesses on what colours are best suited for your website. Use the handy overview below to help inform your colour decisions, and feel free to break from the norm and challenge the status quo.
After careful thought and consideration about your colour scheme, if you implement and forget about it, you're almost guaranteed to lose out on business. Having a robust mechanism to test and trial your ideas will pay dividends for your business and allow you to grow conversions without the need to increase traffic to your site.
Ask your web developers about A/B testing, which allows you to analyse two variations of a page and work out which performs better for you. Google Optimize is available to help with this task, as are many other resources, either third-party or baked directly into popular CMS and e-commerce platforms.
We've only just scratched the surface on the topic of colour; this in-depth subject has the power to deliver on so many different levels and affect the user experience. Other considerations include accessibility; how would your website stand up to use by someone who is colourblind? What about dyslexia? Did you know colour can make your site easier to read for people suffering from this condition?
This article is designed to open your eyes to the impact of colour in web design, talk to others, gather insight from your web agency and see where it leads, then test test test, and you're sure to come out on top.
We'll take your project from idea to reality... and do it with style!