By Jon Clark
Wait, isn’t colour on a website just used for aesthetics? No. Colour is used for so much more than the attractiveness of a website.
Research shows that colour is crucial in shaping customers’ perceptions of a brand. That’s why some of the most successful companies put in a lot of effort to find the right colours to represent their brand. It keeps its branding consistent everywhere, especially in its communication channels.
So, how exactly can you use colour for conversion optimization on your site and increase sales? Let’s take a closer look.
Pick The Right Colours To Convey Brand Personality
Colours help shape a brand’s perception. One study even showed that colours evoke and elevate people’s emotions. What’s more, most people closely associate memories and experiences with specific colors. So, choosing the right colours will ensure your brand remains at the forefront of your customers’ minds.
Take, for example, someone who grows up in a happy family home with orange walls, whose favourite restaurant has orange chairs, and who’s won every soccer game in an orange jersey. Because of these memories, this person will associate joy and success with the colour orange.
You want people to connect a colour or a combination of tones to your brand. Picking the right shades can improve your brand’s perception.
Be careful when selecting colours for an international brand, though. A colour that one audience thinks of in a positive light could be perceived negatively in another due to cultural differences. Carefully examine the perceptions your colour choices have in different cultures, so you don’t adversely affect your conversion rates.
Categorize Products By Different Colours
Think of how easy it is to find a page on a file binder with coloured tabs. That’s how easy it’ll be for your potential customers when you use colour to categorize different product pages. Furthermore, it makes your website look more organized and user-friendly.
When picking the best colours for product pages, make sure they align with the website’s overall colour theme because doing so will reinforce your brand’s perception.
Pro tip: Use colours that reflect your products’ personalities for the product pages.
Make Your Call To Action Pop More With Bright Colours
The CTA represents the last part of the conversion funnel just before web visitors become leads for your sales team. If a visitor can’t locate the CTA button, all your marketing efforts will go to waste because they won’t do what you intended them to do once they got to your site.
For example, if your “Buy Now” button blends in with the website background colour, then a web visitor may not find it during the checkout process. This will force them to click away to find a site where the entire process is more seamless, lowering your e-commerce conversion rate. To avoid this, make sure your CTA buttons are bright enough so your website visitors don’t miss them.
Best Colours For CTA Buttons
One study showed that red CTA buttons increase your conversion rate more than green ones. However, not all businesses go by this study. Companies like Spotify and Evernote, for example, still have high conversion rates with green CTA buttons.
You should choose a colour that works well for your brand. Some of the best colours you can use for CTAs are blue, yellow, orange and black.
Make The Colour Of Your CTAs More Pronounced
Once you find the right colour for your CTAs, check their effect against the background colour. Are they contrasting or do they blend in? If the CTAs have a contrasting colour to the background, they’ll pop out more, which is precisely what you’re aiming for.
Contrast can either be high or low. High-contrast colours (complementary) tend to pop out more, while low-contrast colours (analogous) are subtle yet still eye-catching. The more the CTA draws attention to itself, the more likely the customer is to click on it and the higher the chances of increasing your conversion rate.
However, the best colour contrasts won’t matter if your customers don’t like the colour combinations. You need to conduct an A/B test to find out which colour combinations they prefer to increase your average conversion rate.
Boost Your Conversion Rate Optimization To Reach Your Conversion Goals
Colour is often overlooked by most businesses when trying to boost a website’s conversion rate, but if you choose the right colours to represent your brand, you’ll see a correlated boost in your conversion rates.
Over and above choosing the correct colours for your overall website and even product pages, make sure potential buyers can’t miss your CTA buttons because all your marketing boils down to this.
Feature Image Credit: getty
By Jon Clark,
Managing partner at Moving Traffic Media, a New York digital agency offering SEO, PPC and Amazon marketing services.