What are the best colors for higher conversion when it comes to links and buttons on the
web?
If you've ever wondered about the answer to this question I'm going to reveal it in just
a minute and the answer is going to blow your mind.
About a hundred years ago Hedwig Von Restorff ran an interesting memory experiment.
She got a list of ten items, they were all distinct items on a list and she asked people
to remember the items on this last.
Now as with all psychological experiments there is a catch, nine of the items on this
list were in black ink and one of the items were in blue ink.
What do you think happened?
When she asked these research participants to recall what they remembered from this list
of items she found that people were more likely to remember the blue item.
When you think about it it makes sense the blue items stood out from the list of ten
items so it grabbed more attention.
It made an imprint in people's minds which is why they were able to remember it.
Today we call this the Von Restorff effect or other people actually call the isolation
effec.
But check it, knowing about the Von Restorff effect can be a silver bullet for higher conversions.
Now let's take this a little deeper, there was another experiment run by Paras Chopra
who is the founder of Visual Website Optimizer.
Paras was trying to increase the download of his free software on his blog.
And here's what he did he had different layouts of download link text in his sidebar and in
these different layouts he tried all sorts of things.
He had links that were large he, had links that were small, he had links that were black,
he had links that were red.
And in the end he found that the red link, the small red link actually outperformed a
larger black link.
Why?
Because he was taking advantage of the Von Restorff effect.
Paras site did not use the color red anywhere so when he used that color red in this particular
case it stood out instead of blending in.
Now lets take this back to you how do you find your color?
Well you just have to remember this what stands out gets clicked, what blends in gets ignored.
So how can you start implementing this on your web design?
Well you have to look at it like this, your web design should have two types of colors;
passive colors and action colors.
So passive colors make up your web design.
Passive colors make up your brand your visual appeal.
Action colors on the other hand that's what people want to click.
Action colors beckon people to click links click buttons.
Action colors require people to do something with that particular color.
So as an example you take a look at SocialTriggers.com you'll notice that I use very little color
on my site.
I actually hate colors but I use purple links on my site.
Why?
Purple is my action color you'll notice all my hyperlinks are purple.
If you go to SocialTriggers.com you go the top you'll see this big box with the brain
it above that brain is this little purple box with another purple link in there.
That little box gets a ton of clicks.
Why?
Because purple is my action color and I've trained my readers and customers to know that
purple means click.
I'm pointing this out because even though this seems like common sense I see people
making this mistake all the time.
It's like web designers don't understand the idea between passive colors and action colors.
For example I actually stumbled on one website that had red links.
Red links.
So red links were their action color.
This same website had red sub headlines.
Sub headlines that you couldn't click.
You couldn't click these sub headlines.
How confusing is that?
In one case red means click in another case red means you can't click.
How can you expect people to click on your links if they don't even know what they're
supposed to be clicking?
This is why you need a passive color and an action color.
so what's the best color for your conversions?
The best color is whatever you set your action color to be and your action color needs to
pop.
Your action color should take advantage of the Von Restorff effect.
the action color should be different than any other color on your site that way your
training you readers and customers to click when they see that specific color.
Now I have a question for you, do you have a friend that thinks there is a perfect color
for high conversions on the web or worse do you know someone who mixes up their action
colors and their passive colors?
Do them a favor send them a link to this video and save their life plus you'll be helping
me out.
Because every time I stumble on a website that mixes this up it frustrates me because
it's such an easy fix.
So go ahead and email this link to a friend right now.
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