Tapping Into The Visual Stimulus Of Your Web Site Visitors
"Oh, my eyes, my eyes! What an eye sore. Quick, click away!
Click away!"
Suddenly I wake up in a cold sweat. What happened. Oh, then I
realize: it was just a nightmare.
O.k., I'm not crazy, and no I haven't had this dream before. But
think about this: what would you do if you came to a site
littered with either tons of different colors, loud pinks,
purples, greens and reds mixed incoherently, or more animations
and graphics than the rods and cones of your inner eye can
possibly absorb? If your like me I simply go "click, bye-bye".
Our visual stimulus is ever more so important on the web than
almost anywhere else. The internet is most definitely about
information. But, that information is shown graphically. So, if
you want to keep people at your site, first appeal to their
visual stimulus.
There are a few guidelines that you should adhere to when
designing your site, following known research results on colors
that elicit certain psychological responses. The bottom line is
that it is hard enough to market on the internet today, why make
it harder by irritating your visitors.
(1) Colors and Their Effect: I prefer blue and white. In general
blue seems to elicit a sense of trust and white a sense of
purity. Gold, on the other hand is the color of wealth and
prosperity, something we are all working towards. So, with
respect to general internet marketing, these colors tend to work
the best. They are easy on the eyes and don't strike up a sense
of danger, such as with the color red. Of course, the colors
also depend on purpose of your site. If selling baby items,
pink, which represents femininity, and baby blue, representing
weakness may work quite well. It depends in part on site
content. A high tech site selling electronic components may do
better with greys, silvers, and black.
(2) Animations and Banners: Animations are nice, but can take
time to load and be distracting. Use them to focus the attention
of a visitor. Place them at a single page location, at the
center or all at the left side for instance. If you use more
than one and they are scattered all over the page, where can you
expect your eyes to focus. Yep, you heard right - click, bye,
bye.
Banners can also give you problems if there are two many and not
well organized. Pay attention to the color design to ensure that
it matches your site. Remember, no eye sores here. Overall,
banner are known not to have the highest clickthrough rates.
(3) Flash Media: Flash media animations are steadily gaining
popularity and many sites are tailoring their start-up page to
include large flash animations. Beware. In online home
businesses, your primary purpose is content. Only fit in flash
where it is strictly meant to guide the visual stimulus to a
part of your site. I know, I know, it does look cool. But cool
doesn't and never will build sales out of potential prospects.
A few further resources that are of particular interest here are
(1)http://www.internet-marketing-research.net ,
(2)http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html ,
(3)http://psychology.about.com/library/weekly/aa031501a.htm .
As a good rule of thumb, if it hurts your eyes, it probably
hurts others as well. Keep it simple, professional, easy to look
at with color used just in the right place to highlight your
content. Content is what will build your home based business.
Elicit a visual response from your visitors to drive them to
your content.