Website Psychology: How to Hook Your Potential Customers

In a fast-paced and technology dependent lifestyle that we live in today, everything that we need is available within a click away. If you’re in business or in marketing, you need to be visible online so that 1) your customers know that you exist 2) you can offer what they need 3) you can connect with them and lastly, 4) to close potential sales. However, as much as it is necessary to have a website, have you also considered the psychology behind keeping your prospect viewer engaged whilst in your site?

Considering the elements and design to maintain engagement with the website visitors should be your top priority in building your site. Our purchasing behavior is just as important to a design as the required elements themselves. Understanding the thought process and buyer psychology plays an important role in designing a website to convey the message that you want to deliver.

In order to achieve this, a web designer and business owner must understand how different website elements affect the mood, attitude, and experience of the visitor so that at the end, the user will have a positive impression. Let us look at these elements and see how it plays a role in affecting the purchasing mood of the consumer.

Eye-catching Copywriting

Content is a primary driving force to capture your visitors’ attention. At the same time, Formatting and typography is just as important as the content.

Your content should be well-organized, edited, and comprehensive to create the proper balance between information seeking, ease of use and visuals. Your content should serve its purpose when a visitor types in your URL—they get the information that they need quickly and they are at ease afterwards, not overwhelmed.

Copywriting in the right context is key to capturing your visitors’ attention. If your organization or a brand doesn’t present itself appropriately to the users, they may end up unsure or unclear about your proposition. There’s nothing more attractive than a confident headline followed by a clear and concise body copy. Make sure you give this some good thought because it could very well make the difference in having your visitors click through.

Appropriate Space and Format

Organization (typography, content, etc.) affects the behavior and mood of your customer. From the beginning, organize your content so that it will be spread out evenly all throughout. “White space” or the area without any design is the viewer’s resting place. Depending on the concept of your site—do you want it to be minimalist or bombarded with pop-ups—white space is important so that the viewer can breathe. Otherwise, your visitor may become overwhelmed.

In web design, you need to respect space and utilize it properly. You have to keep it simple yet big in impact so that visitors can discern the important things in the site; as well as for easy navigation.

Fitting Typography

Typography is another influencer on how you can shape your customer’s mood or feelings. The right typography can persuade a user to read on a certain piece of content or lose interest and opt out. Humans instantly associate fonts with emotions and judgements. *

It is important that in the design process, you should think about the typography because it directly influences the effectiveness of the site. There are thousands of typefaces available online and depending on your tone, you can choose from:

  • Serif fonts (i.e. Times New Roman)—often associated with professionalism and seriousness
  • Sans Serif (i.e. Helvetica)—modern, informal, clean, upscale
  • Old Style (i.e. Garamond)—traditional, classic, readable
  • Humanist Sans (i.e. Verdana) –modern yet human, clear yet empathetic
  • Slab Serifs (i.e. Rockwell) – sometimes the thinker, sometimes the tough guy

Additionally, you should also think about how to present the fonts. Spaces between the lines (leading) and letters (kerning) are also important elements. The space between paragraphs, margin, and font size are also factors to consider. There are no bad or good fonts. Choosing fonts that are fitting for your website is something only someone who fully understands your brand and your brand’s vision will understand. So, make sure your team is aligned in this aspect.

The Right Mix of Color

This is the first thing that visitors will notice on your site, so it is imperative that the color choices won’t, most importantly, strain the eyes. Colors influence how visitors perceive your site so from the get go; select the color scheme that will reinforce your statement or brand.

Every color represents a meaning depending on how you want your brand perceived, here’s a list that might help you:

  • Red- fiery and passionate
  • Orange- Energetic and warmth
  • Yellow- warm, happy, joy or cowardice
  • Green-growth, renewal, inexperience, jealousy and envy
  • Blue- calm, cool, often associated with corporate images
  • Violet- royal, opulence, creative
  • Black- chameleon, mysterious, sexy, edgy, safe
  • White- purity and innocence
  • Gray-conservative, sophisticated, moody
  • Brown- wholesome, approachable, reliable
  • Attractive Photos/Images

Sometimes, users don’t read the content anymore and just look at the photos. With the advent of photosharing apps like Instagram, people tend to look at the photos first before reading anything. In general, photos will influence the users’ sentiments.

Composition and colors should complement the overall tone of the website because it affects the subconscious telling the user how they should react with your brand and what to do on your site. When a user sees happy elements on your site, they naturally want to stick around. This gives you a higher chance of getting them to sign up with to your newsletters, get in touch, make a purchase on your site, etc.

Choose photos and images that your company wants the user to feel. Do not focus only on the eye-catching, but also the values. The text surrounding the image may also reinforce or highlight key points of your message. Putting call to action texts on the images may lead to increased clicks and higher conversions for you.

Conclusion

Building a well-thought out website that is geared towards performance is a mix of art and science. It is a combination of the efforts of your designer and communication/marketing specialist to consider the typography, color and images and how to use it altogether to produce a website that will create a positive experience for the user and a profitable one for you.