What I like is irrelevant
This is going to be a short blog post. Because the message may hurt and I don't want to rub it in.
This is one of the biggest lessons I have learned in my transition from being "just an online guy" to becoming an online businessman.
In all my years of being online and building websites, I have developed preferences on website design, text layout, colors, content and so on. I know what I like and what looks good in my eyes.
Like me, there is a great risk that you have spent days and weeks building a website that you think looks beautiful. And it feels good to sit back and look at a post, page or whole blog that has your favorite colors, fonts, layout, and images. But your whole effort may be a waste of time, no matter how much keyword research you have done along the way.
Of course, you should write about topics that you like and that are close to your heart. That is not what I'm talking about. But when it comes to presenting it, you should be prepared to throw your own preferences out the window.
Because we are not doing this for fun. Or for ourselves. We are doing it for our readers in order to make them find our message so trustworthy that they want to take action on our website. If we do it right it can be fun too, but we are in it for the money, and to get the money, we need to build websites that convert. Websites that make the visitors buy what you sell.
And when it comes to making the visitors act and buy, our own design preferences are irrelevant.
Building websites that convert is a science by itself. I will not go into how to do that. It is part of the training here at WA, and you should pay attention to those lessons.
You may rank and get visitors by the numbers, but if they don't DO anything on your site, they are worthless. It is still possible to build a well-designed website that looks good. But your colors, layout and overall presentation should have one single purpose: Make people click that button and buy.
And to make that happen, your own design preferences may have to pile up outside the window together with mine.
But when you have taken that step, success is one step closer.
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What you are saying is so very true. Pretty sites don't necessarily sell more than ugly sites, so making it pretty to us doesn't mean we'll $ benefit as a result. Tim Ash teaches a lot about site design and usage; your post reminds me of his favorite saying - "your baby is ugly." Once you can handle that, you design for your visitors, not yourself.
I am impressed (or depressed) every day by how downright ugly some high revenue sites are. But most likely there is thought behind the design no matter how ugly.
I've seen people compromise conversion rates because they didn't want to change something they thought was pretty. You just have to always remember your first priority here - is it art or sales? Strategy should always triumph over design.
Good Morning Jorn,
Yes, I have read that colors influence more than one would think.
When I chose the ones for my websites I did this instinctively and now it turns out these colors are the right ones. I do not concentrate on selling more on spreading the news on subjects of my interest. Fact is I have not earned a cent yet but luckily I can survive.
Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
It is important to know about these factors. Even though too many sites end up in variations of blue :)
LOL!! I feel hurt and honored. Hurt because you are pushing me to dump my preferred design for my website and honored because in response to my question you have written a blog for everyone to benefit.
Thank you for the post!
Hehe :) It was not intended for you personally but I know that feeling of hurt :)
My best tip is to look at other successful sites in your niche and see how they do their color scheme. Steal inspiration from the best. Then read up on the psychology of color. There are lots of websites describing this in an easy and understandable way, and even offer ready to use color palettes and combinations for inspiration.
Also, in the beginning, work on content before design. It will take some time for a site to rank enough that design really matters, so better to fill it with content and fiddle with the design when you need a break from writing.
Yup, suffer from this myself. Learning the hard way too. All is good though. Recognizing, agreement and solutions to move forward. Put the right steps into motion and follow the proven training. Great insight!
I can be fairly stubborn I guess. My first sites were horrible for personal design. I didn’t listen to anything, thought I was being unique.
Glad I am here for all the insights. Helps us all see things a little
more clearly.
Being stubborn has its done falls for sure. There is always hope
Though as I will always be open to more learning and making improvements where I lack. Thanks again!
Do you mean to make the website more simple? Are the colours too distracting to the product you are promoting?
Jae
There are colors that trigger trust and there are colors that trigger fear. Using colors correctly will put the readers in the right mood to make a purchase.
It is done in newspaper ads, in the supermarket, and online on blogs and e-commerce sites.
The way text is presented, what is emphasized, and how it leads the reader to find answers to his questions and click the button, which has the right color and text and is placed correctly according to user behavior.
It is all a science and there are lots of information to be found if you want to dig deep into this.
I enjoy your style, immediately got my attention when you said the message may hurt. It is so important to always be teachable. Thank you for your blog, it is great information that we need to pay attention to.
Hi, you're so right! It's really hard to ignore your own preferences when it comes to building a website, but we have to remind ourselves that it's not just a website, it is a business!
What we prefer, is just not relevant. Great post and thanks for the reminder : )
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You are so right, this is the challenge of many entrepreneurs, we are so passionate about what we do but in business, it becomes irrelevant if it does not generate revenue.
So true. And a bitter pill to swallow when we find out :)