What Colors attract Customers to your Website?

Rainbow Mountain or Tsitsutl in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, the Largest in BC Photographic Print
Peachin, Mary

16 in. x 12 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com

The colors you use may influence whether a potential buyer will remain and continue looking through your site, or leave!

I repeat, may. I have also seen where the use of unusual colors or visual effects by some websites, who to me do everything wrong, yet don't seem to suffer by doing so. So these theories are not absolute.

For me, if the purposeful use of color attracts or helps a potential buyer remain on your website, or encourages them to buy, then that is something I take into consideration. I have always believed that although content is extremely important, it is not the only factor.

Consider this. The next time you are at your favorite fast food restaurant, look closely at their use of color. Do they decorate with reds and oranges? If so, that is because those colors encourage people to eat and leave quickly. And frankly, that is exactly what they want.

Or visit large corporate websites, these guys have spent big dollars on this type of research. Look at eBay, their search pages were previously in a pale yellow, looking for warmth and happiness, and which actually matched their marketing strategy at the time. They now focus on attracting youthful buyers and using clean white backgrounds. And what about General Motors, they often use blue (for trust and reliability) and silver (for prestige).

If you are international or target different markets, keep in mind that different cultures, classes and genders have different attitudes and preferences; so each may have another reaction to what you and I might expect.

Cultural Differences - Colors obtain symbolism through cultural references in the culture you grew up in. Depending upon the culture, colors can have very different meanings and may actually cause problems for your site. For example, in the East, white is the color of funerals while in the West white is the color of Weddings. In China, white symbolizes death and in Brazil it's purple.

Class Differences - Marketing research in the United States has shown that working class people tend to prefer colors that you can name: like blue, red, green, etc. While more highly educated classes tend to prefer colors that are more obscure: like taupe, azure, mauve, etc. This is why Walmart does their store logo in blue.

Gender Differences - In many cultures, men tend to prefer cooler colors (blues and greens) while women tend to prefer warmer colors (reds and oranges).

Location - People from countries with warmer climates generally respond more favorably to warmer colors; where people from countries with cooler climates respond more favorably to cooler colors.

In the US and Canada, the following are general color references:

First, make sure you have the right target market.

If you have a website or online store and use colors because they are your favorite colors, then you risk choosing them for the wrong target market. After all, you are you are trying to attract and sell to potential buyers, not yourself.

We've all been subjected to sites with unpleasant color combinations. I have seen a few that although the colors used may be the owners favorite colors, they are either very hard on the eyes (almost blinding) or make the text very difficult to read. You want people to view your website with ease. Remember, it's easy for your visitors to press the back button.

* IMPORTANT TIP *

Using too many colors, or the wrong combination of colors could alienate or turn off your potential buyers completely.

On average, you should only choose three colors (or shades of those colors) at the most.

Information is based on my personal interpretation of online research compiled from several articles on the internet.

A few years back, I used to be a frequent poster on a few of the eBay Discussion Boards and someone who had seen our eBay Listings and website for the first time commented how lovely it was that we used red in our store colors and thought this was so patriotic that as a Canadian business we used red.

I thanked her, but admitted that our official business colours since 1983 were actually black and "no-name" yellow and that since we went into ecommerce and online sales, I switched to red..... which promotes impulse buying * blush *

Shhhh, don't tell anyone, ok? LOL

Red Sky at Night Art Print
Sullivan, Mike
13 in. x 13 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com

Looking for color codes? I have a list of both non-dithering and basic color codes for you to refer to.

What's non-dithering color codes? In layman's terms, these colors will look like the color you ask for on all browsers and all computer screen resolution settings.

Please refer to my Color Code List.