How To Increase your WordPress Site Conversions With Psychology And Colors
Last Updated on January 20, 2021 by Georgie Peru
Believe it or not, there’s a lot of psychology behind the conversion rate of your website and influencing factors. One of those biggest factors aside from having a user friendly design is the colors of your website. A great design only takes you so far but if you have a poor color scheme, you could be bleeding potential customers. We’ve experienced huge gains from A/B testing on UK Web Host Review by testing different colour combinations.
Why do colors affect us so much? You may not even realize it but when you’re browsing a site, there’s three different factors to take into consideration when theorizing how color affects people so much.
First, there’s contrast. The contrast of two colors is simply the difference between them. In art, you use contrast so that you can focus your attention towards a specific element and this is the exact same thing in web design. You use two different colors not only to grab the viewers’ attention and focus on a particular element but it’s also useful for readability. For example, light font on a light background is poor design and contrast.
Complementation is the second factor in color theory. When you look at a color wheel, you might notice there’s two colors that seem to be the complete opposite of each other. Red certainly looks nothing like green but it’s the complementary color. These colors when they’re used together make a great theme and have been shown to increase your conversion ratings.
Finally, there’s vibrancy. In general, this is the mood that a color sets for the visitor. Different studies have shown that warmer colors such as red, yellow or orange have been known to energize people. However, cooler colors such as blue, purple and green have put people into a more relaxed state. Red is one color that’s known to make people alert and green is known to get people in the shopping mood.
Colors & Their Vibrancy
How over millions of years have we developed a mindset to react different to colors? No one truly knows because this isn’t something that we actively taught ourselves. Also, different cultures approach different colors differently as well. For the primary focus of this article, we’re going to focus on increasing your conversions with the western audience and what studies have shown.
When designing your theme or site, keep all of this in mind and think about the demographic you’re targeting. It could be the difference between a 10% bounce rate and a 60% bounce rate with a dramatic drop in conversions or clicks.
Red – This color is known to keep people alert and put people on edge. It’s the color of excitement and it’s also the color of passion. Numerous lingerie and adult online stories try to utilize red whenever possible, such as the front page of Victoria’s Secret showcasing red lingerie. Obviously there’s a lot of other factors as to why that company is successful but when you want someone to feel excited or passionate, this is your go to color.
Yellow – When you think about the color yellow, you probably visualize the summer time and a nice cool breeze. Yellow is warmth and also represents hospitality. This color can put people into a relaxed state of mind or give them a little more trustworthy feeling of the site they’re on.
Orange – As you may have guessed, orange is usually associated with Thanksgiving and Halloween. Orange is the color that represents the start of autumn and harvest. This is common tradition for the west as September through November is when Thanksgiving and Halloween occur. However, this color isn’t particularly known to affect one’s mood so much above the others.
Blue – There’s primarily two different mood factors here for blue. First, there’s the negative context of blue which means sadness or depression. It’s commonly used by pharmaceutical companies trying to sell anti-depressants and the sales numbers don’t lie, it works. However, in a positive context it means authority, power and trust. Believe it or not, a blue tie in an interview can give you an authority look. This is the same reason banks love to use blue on their logos.
Green – This color is one of the broadest colors out there that can be used for a wide variety of things. First, there’s the luck of the Irish, which is why you commonly see green themes everywhere during the month of March. Then, you have pro-environmental groups that use green as their main theme because it represents nature and environment. However, green can also be used by get rich quick sites or sites trying to get you to buy something because it embodies the traits of jealousy and envy.
You see some rich smug guy on a get rich quick page driving a nice car? There’s more than likely pictures of money with some hints of green on it. This is designed to make you jealous to bring you one step closer to clicking that purchase button. It’s not because rich people are obsessed with the color green.
White – This is the most common background color used on websites. It represents peace or purity and isn’t threatening in any manner. It’s also used for religion, weddings and hospitals.
Black – This is the most depressing color on the list as people commonly think of death and formality with this color. However, for web design purposes, if used correctly, it can be a color of force or control.
Brown – This is not an appealing color for your website and in most cases should be avoided but it represents the Earth and health. It’s known to be stable or dependable.
Pink – The stereotypical color that is thought to be every woman’s favorite. Why are western women so attracted to the color pink? The reason for this is because pink is known to represent fun, childhood and sweetness. It’s also thought to be the color of femininity.
Understanding It All and How to Use Different Colors
In order to effectively gauge what color scheme works best for your WordPress site, you need to understand the conversion funnel or at least have one mapped out. While the colors are being taken into consideration, there’s a specific process that happens when a user comes to your website. First, they have to become aware of the elements you want their attention drawn to – VPNGeeks is a good example of a site that has a clear and concise layout.
Second, they need to become interested in what you’re selling. Third, they need to have the desire to press forward with the decision. Finally, there’s the conversion.
Awareness – This is essentially the marketing of your website or your brand. A brand can exist on its own but your website won’t get customers or traffic simply by existing. People need to be aware that your site exists and you need to understand your target audience in order to attract customers.
Interest – Once your visitors have landed on your site, you now need to interest them. You need to act fast because the average user only spends a few seconds on a website before they close the tab, creating a bounce. A bounce is when someone visits your page and leaves it without visiting any other links on the page. This negatively impacts your SEO. This stage should focus on the color scheme, your headlines, your images and compelling copy content.
Desire – Anyone can build interest in a product, if they weren’t interested already but now you need to give them the tool to want what you’re selling. You need to conclude with a multitude of different things in order to build desire other than your product simply existing. You need testimonials, you need a great color scheme that represents the mood of your product and audience and you should give the customers options.
When you’re planning out a site, it’s a general rule of thumb to have 3 different colors selected that best represents your demographic, your brand and your product. Not only do you want your design to be visually impressive but using the guide above, you want something that will positively impact their mood based on what you’re selling. For example, selling wedding services with a primarily black theme will tank your conversions.
You also have to take colors into consideration when designing your call to action button. The call to action button is when people finally reach the desire stage and are ready to purchase. This is the button clicked when they’re ready to make a purchase. Studies have shown that red call to action buttons have been the most effective for most websites.
Before you even begin, what is the goal of your website? What do you hope to accomplish?
One Time Sales – Are you hoping to capture customers for a one time sale?
Email Opt In – Do you hope to capture emails so that you can send our promotional offers and newsletters?
Recurring Sales – Do you hope to acquire customers for a monthly or yearly service?
Affiliation – Are you affiliating for another website and sending visitors to another sales page?
Maximizing your WordPress conversion rate has very little to do with your personal preferences. You really have to step into the mindset of your customers and think about what they want to see and what kind of tone you’re setting when someone first sees the website.
