Psychology of Color in Marketing

Color is an important factor in successful web site design. When color is used correctly, it can send a number of messages to your reader. Meanings are attached to colors in the same way meanings are attached to words. Our reaction to color is almost instantaneous and has a profound impact on the choices we make everyday.

Color are very subjective and can have different meanings to different cultures. The background color of a website, the color of a header, the color of a text and headlines can all have a psychological impact on visitors. When color is used correctly, it can add impact and clarity to your message and highlight important points.

So what colors should we be incorporating into our website designs to ensure we convey the right message to our visitors? I have detailed a list of colors and their associated feelings and keywords so you can get an idea or what to put on your webpages. In Western cultures, the following colors are associated with certain qualities or emotions:

• Red : love, sex, passion, danger, warning, excitement, food, action, adventure.
• Blue : trustworthiness, success, seriousness, calmness, power, reliability.
• Green : money, nature, animals, health, healing, life, harmony.
• Orange : comfort, creativity, celebration, fun, youth, reliability, affordability.
• Purple : royalty, justice, ambiguity, uncertainty, luxury, fantasy, dreams.
• White : innocence, purity, cleanliness, simplicity.
• Yellow : curiosity, playfulness, cheerfulness, amusement.
• Pink : softness, sweetness, innocence, youthfulness, tenderness.
• Brown : earth, nature, tribal, primitive, simplicity.
• Grey : neutrality, indifference, reserved.
• Black : seriousness, darkness, mystery, secrecy,sophistication.
• Silver : prestige, cold, scientific.

When choosing colors for your site it is important to employ contrasting or sympathetic and complementary color schemes. It is important to identify your market and ensure the psychological message you are trying to get across with the rest of your site design, words and images is complemented and enhanced by the appropriate color scheme.

Often it can be wise to run samples of the same site with slightly differing color schemes past a test audience and see which has the best impact or you can even run differing colored sites to visitors and track conversions to your goals. Its really up to you how to try and test or track the impact of your psychological color message on your Internet Marketing.