Articles in The 'Color-Psychology' Tag

Website Color scheme

by Emily Creech

Having a quality presence online is imperative for almost any business. Making sure that your website is optimized for search can help to drive quality traffic, resulting in increased leads or customers.   However, a website optimized for search will only go so far.   We often see prospects or clients who have worked to optimize their website – their positions for keywords have improved and their website has seen more traffic. But, at the end of the day, they are not getting more business. The next question we often get is, why not?

Well, as you can imagine, there are many factors that could play a role.   First and foremost, does the website have a goal?   It may be to inform the visitors, encourage them to fill out a form, purchase a product or complete another specific action. If so, is that goal clear to the visitor?   If not, then it can be beneficial to take a step back and determine how your site will lead to increased business for your company.

One more micro element to take into consideration is the color scheme. Colors play a significant role in the feelings that a website can evoke.   What colors do you use on your website?   They can say a lot about your brand and the way someone feels while on your website. A previous post was written about Color Psychology and how you can use it to influence your site visitors.   It is worth checking out to see how your site’s colors are being perceived.  

Search engines don’t take into account the color scheme of your website for indexing purposes.   If it has plain text that is crawlable and keyword targeted, your site can rank well.   The color choice of your website shouldn’t scare off your visitor, but rather should help direct them to achieve the goals that you have set.   Be sure that your colors mesh with the feelings of your company and brand and that same feeling is portrayed to the visitors of your site.  

Color Psychology

by Shawn Escott

Color occurs everywhere in nature and impacts our lives daily. For example, when it is cold outside, the colors are white, blue and purple. When it is warm, the colors are yellow, orange and red. This psychology of color can come in handy when designing a website.

Each color in nature has a corresponding emotional impact. Here are some simple examples:

Blue: Serious, reliable, cool, cold, peaceful
Red: Hot, anger, love
Green: Nature, fresh, growth, calming
Yellow: Sunny, Cheerful, bright
Orange: Warm, exciting, energetic
Black: Mysterious, elegant, dark,
White: Clean, fresh, elegant, purity
Purple: Majestic, powerful, romantic

Using Color in Your Designs
If you have a website that is friendly, warm and inviting, you might consider colors that reflect those attributes, such as yellows, oranges or greens. On the other hand, if your website is promoting a serious and informative presence, you may want to lean more toward blues, whites, and greens. If you are branding a mysterious and foreboding site, then black would be the way to go. If your website is promoting a hospital or medical company you want to project a brand that is clean, reliable and sanitary, white and blue would be appropriate.

Color Harmony
A good rule of thumb when choosing colors is to keep your selections to a maximum of three. If you stick to this rule then you are most likely going to have harmony in your design. In some cases you can break this rule but do so with caution.

Some good color website references are:
http://kuler.adobe.com/
http://www.colorjack.com/sphere/
http://www.w3schools.com/Html/html_colors.asp