Website Optimization: How to Use Color Effectively

Understanding the psychological connection between color and impact can help make your website more profitable. Colors are the ideal tool to influence consumers. They create atmosphere, encourage purchase intent, and foster trust. Whether you run an online shop or provide informational materials – your chances of success can be significantly increased by using the 'right color' in the 'right place'.

What do goalkeepers and successful websites have in common? Both rely on striking, well-placed colors. Bright colors like neon green or orange draw the eye. If the goalkeeper wears a striking jersey, the opposing attacker unintentionally focuses on them. The goalkeeper is more likely to be hit by the ball and can catch it more easily.

Colors have an enormous impact on our mood, thinking, and actions. The effect that colors have on us cannot be consciously controlled. They unconsciously direct a shot towards the goalkeeper, a reach towards a supermarket shelf, and the mouse to a signup form or purchase button.

The colors and designs used on the website determine how the visitor thinks about you and evaluates your offered services. For 93 percent of people, the visual appearance of the website is a crucial evaluation criterion. Every second person turns away forever if they dislike it. Color choice is also one of the most important factors for completing a purchase. 84.7 percent of online shoppers cited color as the determining factor for whether they make a purchase or not.

Colors Convey Messages and Establish Corporate Identity

Colors play a crucial role in corporate design. They create visual identities and market positioning. Studies show that color increases a company's recognition value by 80 percent.

While insurance companies and financial service providers prefer to use the color blue, discounters often use orange. This is not a coincidence. We associate different colors with different properties. Each color is said to have various effects:

The color red is appetite-stimulating, invigorating, and boosts self-confidence. It strengthens human connections but also causes restlessness. Companies from the food and toy industries, as well as fashion chains, rely on red: Coca Cola, McDonald's, Kellogg's, H&M, YouTube, Nintendo, Lego, and Vodafone.

The color yellow exudes friendliness and warmth. It has an uplifting effect and supports all mental activities, encourages intelligence, and a willingness to learn. Companies like Ikea, Deutsche Post, Yello-Strom, Shell, and Immowelt chose yellow for their corporate color.

The color blue is calming, exudes seriousness and security. It increases productivity, fosters communication, and represents objectivity as well as continuity. Blue is the most used color in corporate design. Well-known companies that use blue are Facebook, Twitter, Skype, American Express, UNICEF, Dell, Nivea, and Walmart, to name just a few.

The color green induces calmness, symbolizes nature, health, and wealth. It also represents new beginnings, strengthens the senses, improves judgment, and dispels depression.

Android, Starbucks, BP, Oxfam, Zooplus, Spotify, and DocMorris are companies with predominantly green logos.

The color orange reflects warmth, excitement, enthusiasm, and price-consciousness. It evokes joy in work, enjoyment, and encourages sociability. Companies like Amazon, Zalando, Mozilla Firefox, Zanox, Simyo, Fanta, and Nickelodeon have chosen orange as their corporate color.

The color purple represents wealth, success, wisdom, and symbolizes creativity as well as imagination. It fosters inner balance and stimulates the subconscious. Yahoo, T-Mobile, Always, and Milka are well-known companies that use purple in their corporate design.

Your Website Visitors Determine the Choice of Colors

Which colors are most suitable for your website largely depends on two components: your intention and target audience. Since colors can influence the behavior of your website visitors, you should first be clear about the specific reaction you want to provoke in them. Do you primarily want to inform and create trust? Or do you want to sell products or services? If your primary goal is brand management, you should predominantly use calming colors like blue, green, or purple on your website. If, on the other hand, you want to trigger spontaneous purchasing decisions, you should use signal colors like yellow, orange, or red.

When choosing colors, keep in mind: It’s not about your own taste, but the taste of your target audience. Your target audience must feel addressed and carry out the desired actions (pressing the purchase button, signing up for the newsletter, visiting a special subpage, downloading a PDF document, etc.).

Studies show that certain segments of the population prefer certain colors. Age, gender, characteristic traits, and interests of the respective target group play an important role here. Younger people like more striking colors. Older demographics, on the other hand, favor muted colors. Men and women do not differ in their choice of favorite colors. The favorite color of the German population is blue, followed by red and green.

If your target group consists of young women aged 15 to 30, you can play with bold tones like Saturn red, cobalt blue, and apple green. If your target group, on the other hand, consists of men between 40 and 65 years, you should focus more on quieter tones like dark red, petrol, and olive green.

Test Different Color Tones

Whether tea orange, vermilion, or rapeseed yellow. You need to test which color tones achieve the desired effect on your target group. Testing procedures help you try different color variants and determine the best one for you.

Colors do not work on their own, but always in combination with other shades. Work with light-dark contrasts (e.g., red button on a white background) or with cold and warm tones here. Regardless of your color choice, you should use a maximum of three colors. These must be consistent across the entire website and harmonize with each other. Use signal colors. Test what works best for your website. But don't overdo it. Signal colors are solely to direct attention to certain contents, such as a purchase button, newsletter signup button, or an important info box. If too many page elements are highlighted in color, the visitor does not know what the most important contents of your website are. They may otherwise feel overwhelmed and discontinue the visit.