Using the Psychology of Colour to Increase Website Conversions
Use of colour is one of the first things that catch your eye when visiting a website. It has an easy influence on how you feel towards a website and its brand. Colour is not only an aesthetic choice, it has a psychological impact on users. This is why you should always consider the colours that you use when making design decisions. These colours that you choose should reflect the message that you want to give. Understanding the psychology of colours will give website designers from Liverpool a good idea of what colours will work best with their brand. It will also help with conversion rates. This is the percentage of users who take action on the site, such as making a purchase or subscribing.
Favourite colours
According to a study done in 2003, 35% of women and 57% of men said blue was their favourite colour. Purple and green are other favourite colours of women. Green and black are other favourite colours for men. Orange is one of the least favourite colours of both women and men. This is why blue and green are popular colours used by brands when targeting both genders, such as Facebook and Starbucks. If you visit a site which has a target audience of male only or female only, then you will usually find that their most used colours are those that are the gender’s colour preferences.
Trust in a brand
Blue is one of the most popular colours used in branding and websites. This is for a good reason. The colour blue is associated with stability, loyalty and peace. These are good messages to give your audience. A well known company, PayPal, uses blue in its logo and across its website and app. It is also used in other, well known banks. This will help to improve their trustworthiness and convince people to use their bank, just by their colour scheme. If they were to choose another colour, such as yellow, as their colour scheme then they wouldn’t have the same effect on users. For example, if someone was looking for a new bank and visiting multiple websites, they would be likely to look more into a bank with a blue colour scheme than one with other colours. This is because the colour blue gives them a feeling of trust, a colour affecting them without them even knowing.
Luxury products
Darker tones and colours such as black and navy gives a sense of luxury, value and power. This is what high end e-commerce sites want their audience to feel. This is why it is used across sites and brands, it gives the feeling of elegance to both their products and website. The car manufacturer, Lamborghini’s official website has a black colour scheme. It is an expensive brand that wants to give their customers the feeling of luxury. Just like buying one of their cars will. Black is not always the best colour to use though. It is the ‘heaviest’ colour which means it can be difficult to highlight other parts of a website. Elements with a black background can seem smaller, so you should not use black when there is too much content on a page. While the colour black can have an elegant feel, it is also related to serious and negative feelings. This is why it is important to really consider when and where to use a black colour scheme.
Environmental products
Green, and other earthly colours, is used in connection with the outdoors, nature and the environment. The National Trust logo is green, which relates to nature which is what the company is all about. This could also be why BP, an oil industry company, uses it on their site and logo. They could be using the positive connections with the colour to present themselves in a more eco-friendly way. Green is also a colour that can improve creativity, which may be why some companies, such as Spotify, use it. Green is also a colour that stands out from the rest, which is why it is often used on buttons for websites. The ‘buy now’ or ‘submit’ buttons you see on websites are often in the colour green as it stands out from the rest of the webpage it is on.
Choosing the right colours is important as it gives the user information and feelings towards the site, without them truly thinking about it. These colours should match the company’s logo and branding, but also should be psychologically appropriate. This means having colours that will relate to the type of website it is. If a site is good to look at, then it is likely that people will stay on the site. This will increase the conversion rate, meaning people will take action on the site
