It is all a game of colors! Be it an extravagant outfit or a combination for your website, if the colors you chose do not mesh well; consider it a complete waste of time.

In general, humans make decisions based on their instincts. Hypothalamus, which tends to be the moment, went our eyes absorb a color and they manage to communicate with a region of the brain, which turn by turn sends a cascade of signals to the pituitary gland, over to the endocrine system, and on to the thyroid glands respectively.

From the thyroid glands, signal the release of hormones that causes a fluctuation in moods and emotions and results in behavior accordingly.

Hold up Dude, What is Color Psychology?

Well ‘Dude’, scientifically it is how color has an effect on the human behavior. Technically speaking it is a branch of the broader field of behavioral psychology. It is quite a complicated field without any doubt.

The usage of color is critical. Our success solely depends upon how we use color respectively.

I think we need to Use the Colors More Appropriately

What do you notice when you Google up a bunch of sites and begin reading them all? How do you scan through and separate the good ones from the bad ones without even looking at what exactly they have written? The answer is simple; the color scheme is what keeps you from switching the tab away. Any color/colors that seem to stand out will have your attention at the palm of their hands be it for a little while or until you read the last word in sight!

First off, the colors used must be prominent enough and they should always compliment the background to keep an impression that might not go away oh-so-easily. Hence, if the main purpose of your website is to entice users into trying your product, always keep in mind that the button proclaiming “Try it Free” should stand out and have a more inviting persona than blending right in to the background.

The bottom-line is at the end it is not always about the best appearance. It is more about keeping a strong connection between the schemes chosen while making the important parts stand out with a bang!

How to use color to improve your website conversion

It is amazing how a specific color can affect your emotions, attitude and even actions.

The influence of color on our decision-making, demonstrates a practice that visuals are one of the top factors whilst decision making for a purchase. A recent study depicted that it takes nearly 90 seconds for a customer to create an opinion regarding a product and the decisions made were due to the color of that product.

Therefore, the usage of the right colors can increase the conversion rate of your website significantly with the help of some tips to using color psychology to your advantage.

• Food for Thought: It is ironic how the most popular color considered as the least appetizing. As rare as it is by nature, food researchers say that when humans searched for food, they taught themselves repeatedly to stay away from toxic or spoiled objects that were in the end often blue, black or purple.

Create Your Theme

It might seem a whole lot more convenient to just scroll through a bunch of predesigned themes and just apply it accordingly to save you half the trouble of creating one of your own as it could feel as if it is taking forever. If you plan your theme yourself, you are actually cutting the hectic part shorter. How you may ask? Well, you are actually setting straight the color scheme all around your purpose and the targeted audience.

Color and target audience

Before jumping to conclusions of the decision to make regarding the colors for the background and all the buttons, make sure you have a firm grasp over the audience you want to have visiting your website.

It is important to recognize the age group you wish to have, whether it is the young generation; requires the help of much more saturated and lively colors to have a strong hold on their attention or it is the older age group that requires more subtle colors, you might have the game going upside down that way.

The more mature age group might even find it distracting or offensive to be viewing such vivid colors.

Gender

Another significant way of targeting your audience is via gender.

I think we all know it is obvious that it is very rare that you find any similarities between the two genders. The dislikes, the likes or anything possibly common between the opposites is what you need all your concentration as a center.

The insightful color study showed that while women adore blue, green and purple, whereas men have a craze for blue, green and black as purple proven as one of their least favorite color. Hence, there is a pattern going on here; if you are aiming for the attention of both genders, purple might not be the best decision.

Each Colors Meaning and the Mood it reflects

•  RED : The most emotionally intense color of all is no other but the color red. It has the power to stimulate a faster heartbeat and increase the rate at which you breathe. This color being the most noticed, as often used as a bright color to grasp ones’ attention especially to warn them.
•  BLUE : This color is without a doubt considered one of the most popular amongst all the colors. Regardless of the gender it has a special affect on us all that somewhat tranquilizes us, gives us a sense of both serenity and security and the same time. However, there is also a downer to it; at the same time, it gives you the feeling of coldness and depression.
•  GREEN : As known to us all, this color seems to symbolize nature. It has an easygoing characteristic that does not come off as too hard on you when you look at it. It actually has a more refreshing and relaxing feel to it.
•  YELLOW : Cheerful, bright sunny yellow is as always an attention seeker as it is! Sometimes also considered as a rather optimistic color; as people tend to lose their temper a lot more easily at the sight of it. Yellow as a color is the most difficult of all for the eye to take in and is a tad bit frustrating, this could make a mess of the entire game you have going on. Although the best part of it is that, it tends to enhance concentration levels to a completely new height!
•  PURPLE : Ah, now this is indeed the color of royalty. It somehow manages to connote luxury, wealth and sophistication. However, it does have more of a feminine touch to it than muscular.

Color-Specific Messages

What more has any regular human being asked for from society than the comfortable feeling of trust? The color blue helps in reassuring us by triggering the sense of security in our minds. We feel more secure and that the site is trustable when it has a shade of blue in it. For instance, Facebook or Paypal, both use shades of blue to give you a sense of security that your mind accepts as being trustworthy enough to provide the site with all information necessary.

If you fear to risk of purchase postponement and own an ecommerce website, you should definitely consider using the color blue as your dominant hue, as it would boast more of a higher aesthetic appreciation score that would correlate with a stronger intent of purchase.

Whereas on the other hand, the color red would play a bolder role as it would promote some risky or aggressive moves but only in an environment, that requires this.

How Colors Affect Your Conversion Rate

Color Statistics

• 85% Shoppers to visit would say that color is the basic reason for the purchase of a certain product.
• 66% people state that they will not purchase certain appliances unless it comes in a color of their choice.
• 26% – fully colored ads get more attention than black-and-white ads.

However, the usage of color to associate with your brand tends to increase brand recognition by almost 80%! Just like the combo of the colors, red and yellow bring the favorite renowned restaurant; McDonald’s to your mind.

Although, it might come off as a surprise to you that more than 90% of purchase decisions possibly made base on the influence of visual factors. If that is not enough; people make most subconscious decisions after about 90 seconds, and 90% of the time, the assessment was based solely on the color of the product purchased.

Gender & Color

• Tastes vary with genders, as we know it. It has been stereotyped for years that women love pink and hence we associate the color to them and it has become a general trademark. But after a few studies, we have come down to the point where we came to know that women love the colors blue, purple green the most, while they hate the colors orange, brown and grey!
• Men on the other hand, that claims to be an extreme opposite from women tend to own a few similar traits as women after all. The colors they love include blue, green and black while they hate the colors orange, brown and purple. Not so different now, eh?

Okay, noted. However, what are the Colors that affect your Spending?

•  Burgundy  – Rich and Refined
•  Black  – Color of Sophistication
•  Green  – Used to attract Eco-minded people
•  Blue  – Trust and Dependable
•  Orange  – Fairness and Affordability

Colors that are a major No-No

Whether you admit it now or not, light pink is like specifying a gender as your target that will push away the boys forever. A major drawback being it can also convey a strong weakness. Then grey, although it is a very neutral color, at the same time appear very gloomy and represent loneliness and sadness all at once.

Next up is black. It is associated with exclusivity, but also considered as the traditional color to represent fear or death. Therefore, unless you are to set up a death trap you might want to avoid this color! Lastly, brown is an ultimate color to avoid looking up to. If you are to use only brown, you will only be guiding everyone slowly away as it represents boredom like no other!

Let us determine the Signals that Each Color is giving off

There are three types of buyers and each buyer has colors that trigger them the most:

1. Impulse Shoppers: The typical shoppers with a cart full of Blue, Brown and Black.
2. Shoppers on a Limited Budget: Dark blue and Light blue all the way!
3. Traditional Buyers: Light pink, Sky Blue and Magenta.