The goal of any website is to drive viewers to action.  Action can be a phone call, purchasing a product, or donating money.  To support action, a website should stimulate certain thoughts and emotions.  It is a web designer's job to create action through the layout and color.  If the psychology of these attributes is mastered, the odds of your website being successful dramatically increase.

Web designers often refer to the white space in a website layout as negative space.  There is an underlying urge to fill that space with as much content as possible.  White space is not wasted space.  It is an integral part of the design and psychology of the design.  It is required to achieve balance.  It can promote elegance and organization.  If you walk in to somebody's office and it is cluttered with paper and empty drink bottles, your initial reaction is to get out.  It is also more difficult to focus.  If the seats are filled with paper and you have no place to sit down, your emotions drive you to leaving.  A website promotes these same types of emotions, and the last thing you want a visitor to do is leave. 

Once balance is achieved with white space, the critical task of choosing colors is next.  Color can instill trust, honestly, competence, and value.  Red is an emotional and intense color.  It can increase the viewer's blood pressure and heart rate.  Yellows can create a warm and cheerful place to be and stimulates muscle energy and mental activity.  Green can represent the earth, and often symbolizes harmony, fertility, endurance, and stability.  It is the most restful color for the human eye.  Blue is popular for corporate websites because of its association with stability, wisdom, and confidence. 

Be careful in choosing not only the colors for your website, but the shades of those colors.  The contrast in your color palette is a critical component.  Don't under estimate its value. 

A component that is often overlooked is the entry point of a website.  Years ago, the entry point was the home page. With advancements in search engines, the entry point can be any page on your website.  The actions you want to generate should be fostered by textual and graphical cues, and these cues should become the primary purpose not just your home page, but every page on your website.

Getting a cheap and basic online presence takes little money these days, and little time.  The initial small investment may seem attractive, but can portray an image that you may never recover from.  Before you decide to go this route, understand that a professionally designed website doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming to put together.  Take a step back and evaluate your goals.  Make sure your website can react to market conditions and changing business goals. 

Contact Goodfriend Solutions today for a free evaluation.  We can evaluate your existing website or work with you on designing your first online presence.