Appealing to Customers Through Color

By Merle
Posted Thursday, July 15, 2004

This article stresses the importance of picking the right colors for your Website

One of the first steps you should think about when designing your Website is 'what colors will I use?' Sometimes that decision is made for you in advance if you happen to be putting together a corporate site that already have pre-determined company colors they already use. If not, and the field of color choice is wide open, you need to think long and hard as to the physiological effects of colors and the mood they create.

If the desired effect you're looking for is to create a restful, calm site, say for a nursing home. It's not going to help your cause if you choose an excitable color like red. How many colors should you use? Try to limit your site to 2 or 3 at the most. Anymore than that will tend to create confusion and look unprofessional.

Since colors can trigger reactions in people, with your website you want these reactions to be favorable. You want them to fill out that form, purchase that product,sign up for your newsletter. Good choice of color can help move them along to the desired response.

Understanding a little about color theory will go a long way in helping you make the most out of your color selections. Below are some basic colors and meanings.

* Brown - Comfortable and Enduring
* Red - Exciting, energy, passion
* Purple - Associated with royalty/mystery
* Black - Elegance and sophistication
* Yellow - Betrayal- Fear
* White - Innocence and Purity
* Blue - Reliability and Trust

Are you starting to get an idea of why using the right colors can make or break a site? For example a site that sells baby merchandise would want to stick with pastel soft colors, not outrageous purple or black.

To learn more about color theory check out these sites for further information.

Setting the Mood with Color - (http://www.webdesignclinic.com/ezine/v1i3/mood/index.html)

Color Matters - (http://www.lava.net/~colorcom/entercolormatters.html)

Color Theory for Web Design - (http://www.postfun.com/training/design/resources/colortheory.html)

Color is a very powerful aspect of Web design, take advantage of it and you'll have a very successful site that evokes just the right mood, and gets the response you're looking for.

About the Author
Merle is an internet marketer, promotion consultant and ezine publisher. Visit her sites at (http://www.mcpromotions.com/), (http://www.merlesworld.com/) and (http://www.ezineadauction.com/).