Is colour important to your business and brand?

Colour can be descriptive. Colour can affect the way we think. Colour can affect the way we feel.

A recent study conducted by Dr. Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa has shown that the public in general takes only 50 milliseconds to make a judgement about your website.

This makes the importance of ‘feel’ in your web design a much more important feature.

No matter how good your website copyrighting is – if the visitor gets the wrong ‘feel’ in that first 50 milliseconds, they won’t stay around long enough to read it.

Based on this – the colours that you choose for your online branding can be the difference between attracting or repelling a potential customer.

Oranges and Yellows

Bright colours such as oranges or yellows are often seen as friendly and fun, great for younger audiences.

On the flip side, these colours can be viewed as less professional and make your site look like it lacks conviction.

Blues

Colours like navy blues can be seen as professional and serious. Colours such as these are often used on websites that represent law or finance.

The negatives of this colour include making your brand feel stuffy or without humour.

Reds

Reds represent feelings of heat and strength. They portray confidence and power.

Unfortunately, reds can also describe anger, which can be intimidating to some visitors.

Greens

Greens embody nature and health. It is often used when referring to the outdoors or fresh foods.

Some people link this colour to ‘green’ political statements, which can be good or bad depending on your point of view but means that it is often absent from corporate sites.

Light or Dark

Whether your colours are light or dark will also have an effect on the perception of your site.

Light colours and large areas of white are used on websites to give a site an easy, free feel. It can make the content feel easy to read and can give an impression of health and beauty.

Dark colours and black can add a dramatic feel to a website. Dark colours can give your images more punch. Large blocks of text on dark colours can be harder to read but can give a sense of gravity to your words.

By combining these colours and of course the millions of other colour combinations you can help your visitors make their initial decision about your business.

There are no hard and fast rules. There are no right and wrong colours. But colours do influence a visitors experience and therefore will have an impact on your bottom line.

So when looking at your web design, make sure you consider colour. Take some time to determine how you want your visitors to feel when they enter your home page. Then decide – do these colours describe that feeling?