How to Use Colors to Increase Your Freelance Website Conversions

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Are you a freelancer? Then you should be aware of the invaluable power of running your own personal web page. In order to attract a wider audience and motivate people to order your services, you need to build a strong and compelling online presence. How do you achieve that? How do you create a positive first impression and make people want to hire you? In this blog post, we will find out how to boost your freelance website conversion rates by means of the clever use of color psychology.

The world around us is made of colors. Banners, books, photos, and any other object that you look at is painted in certain hues. When talking about web design, the power of colors is incomparable. These strong emotional triggers can motivate you to take a specific action, make you feel energized or empathetic. Colors can also help you boost profits. How? Easy. You just need to know what meaning every hue bears and what combinations have the strongest effect on the audience. So, let’s focus on how freelancers can multiply their income with the clever use of color psychology.

What Audience Do You Target?

This is the first question that every freelancer needs to ask himself when starting an online project. What’s your objective? Who is your audience? Do you target male or female users? Are those youngsters or adults? Depending on the way you answer these questions, you can grasp a better understanding of the way you need to design your site. It’s no secret that colors have different effects on different people. A female audience is more captivated by warm colors, whereas males give preference to cool hues. Even in ancient times, it was indispensable for every human being to understand the language of colors. Bright colors alerted them that certain things were poisonous, whereas light hues meant that one could feel safe. Generally speaking, all colors can be divided into two main groups – warm and cool.

  • As a rule, warm colors are associated with the sun that brings life to the planet. These are red, yellow and orange.
  • Cool colors are natural hues associated with peaked mountains and rainy forests. These are green, blue and violet.

Which colors, more than others, motivate users to undertake a specific action, you might ask? Well, the answer is simple – red and orange. As a matter of fact, a call-to-action button painted red/orange results in a 34% boost to your site’s conversion rates compared to the same button painted green.

Red is one of the most intense, attention-grabbing colors. This is one of the most powerful hues for expressing moods and feelings. The way people perceive it is based on personal associations and cultural traditions. Just like any other hue in a color wheel, red also has a number of shades, each of which bears a different meaning. Thus, darker red evokes more sinister emotions, whereas lighter hues will bring a more feminine look and feel to your online project. It is an optimal solution for promo banners, text highlights and on-page elements (like buttons and arrows).

By using the power of red on your site, you can create a feeling of urgency, attract attention and invoke a call to action. Another powerful, eye-catching color that you can opt for is orange. Orange is a mix of red and yellow. Unlike its red “component”, orange is less aggressive yet also attention-grabbing. If for some reason you do not want to use red hues in your site’s design, you can opt for orange to draw users’ attention to buttons and texts. Orange bears an ambivalent meaning. On one hand, it is associated with energy, life and activity. On the other hand, orange has a safety meaning. This is a positive color that is commonly associated with the sun, oranges, vitamins and happiness. Brighter orange hues bring a more energetic and optimistic look to web resources, whereas faded hues have a soothing effect. When used in web design, orange communicates productivity, enthusiasm, and sociability of a person/brand standing behind a site. At the same time, orange can mean cheapness. So, take care which specific shade of orange you use on your site.

According to Orange Color Web in Web Design Infographics, you can expect to achieve the following effects when using orange on your site:

  • create an energetic look be means of red-orange;
  • stimulate conversion with peach-orange;
  • encourage vitality and self-control with golden orange;
  • inspire confidence with amber-orange;
  • and create a soothing effect with yellow-orange.

Orange appeals better to younger audiences. It is perceived better by children and young teens, but becomes a distraction with age. Orange is the best option for impulse customers. If your freelance site targets a male audience, then you should know men’s color preferences. Unlike women, men tend to dislike red, orange and purple hues. Instead, they give preference to cool blue and green hues, which are commonly associated with maleness.

Do You Want to Cultivate Trust with Your Site?

In order to boost conversions and attract more clients, your freelance website needs to look trustworthy and reliable. How can this be achieved? Well, ‘Content is King’, and the way you present information on your web resource is of huge importance. The availability of user testimonials plays a tremendous role in the way people will perceive you. There is so much to say about the presentation of content that one post isn’t enough. So, let’s get back to the topic of this article and find out how to generate the users’ trust by means of color. Blue is the most frequently used color on business web projects, and there are a lot of reasons why people give preference to this hue:

• This is the color of trust, peace, order and loyalty. This is the color of corporate America, saying “believe me, trust me. Have confidence in what I am saying”. •

Blue is commonly described as a peaceful color, which calls to mind feelings of serenity. Psychologists agree upon the message of trustworthiness and serenity that the color blue projects. This is the most popular hue that you can find on personal and landing pages. Let’s consider the following example. Tap-Tap Design is built in minimalist style, with the use of neutral grey and blue hues. Light yellow tones are used to bring the users’ focus of attention to highlighted content.

Speaking about the use of yellow on your site, experts differ on how effective it can be for freelance and personal web pages. Yellow is intended to bring a cheerful atmosphere to your site’s pages, stimulating playfulness and excitement. There is no doubt that yellow is attention grabbing. On the other hand, people used to say that it’s the color that makes babies cry and people angry. That’s why, if people have some positive associations with yellow, then they will react to the yellow-colored design elements favourably. Negative memories will cause negative emotions when looking at yellow design elements on your site. Simply said, if you want your site to generate higher conversion rates soon after its launch, it’s better not to adopt a risky approach.

Use Brighter Colors for Higher Conversions

Bright call-to-action buttons mean higher conversion rates. You need to draw the users’ eye to the areas that encourage a more profound investigation of the kind of services you provide, your most recent projects, and hire you with a click. That’s why black, grey and brown CTAs will not bring you the desired results. In addition to the red and orange call-to-action buttons that we were talking about at the beginning of this post, you can also design CTAs in green and yellow. As we’ve already explained, these can bring lower conversions than red but these will still have an attention-grabbing, captivating effect on your audience.

For example, Danny Diablo has built his freelance website in dark tones. Orange texts and call-to-action buttons look outstanding within such a layout, drawing the users’ attention to highlighted works and personal achievements.

Don’t Forget about Whitespace

The use of whitespace shouldn’t be neglected in web design. This is an indispensable design element providing for better readability of your site’s content. It makes the layout look more spacious and easy-to-scan. When surrounded with whitespace, CTAs become more prominent and attention grabbing. For example, Caitlin-McEvoy makes smart use of whitespace on her site, creating the sense of freedom and breathability on its pages.

Themes to Get Started with a Freelance Site Effortlessly

If you are planning to launch a freelance website or upgrade an existing one, then the following suggestions of ready-made website templates should come in handy. Both of them make use of bright, eye-catching elements to boost conversion rates. How? Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

Marketing Agency Responsive WordPress Theme The template is built in light, minimalist style. Highly readable and easy-on-the eyes, it features a clever use of whitespace. Placed on light backgrounds, red buttons and highlighted text look eye-catching, encouraging you to take some sort of action. With the purpose of boosting interactivity and user engagement, the theme is enhanced with a cool hover effect painting data in red on the mouse-over.

Mike Deno Website Template Unlike the previously described theme, this one is built in dark hues. Placed on such backgrounds, orange design elements look even more eye-catching. Header slider, ghost icons and CTA buttons are painted orange, creating a warm yet energetic atmosphere on the page and guiding the users’ eye to the areas where they might initiate a certain action (see more, subscribe, discover services, etc.).

Wrapping up…

The choice of colors for your website is heavily dependent on the business niche to which you belong, as well as your target audience. Without any doubt, red is the hottest color that evokes the strongest emotions in your audience. It can make people feel passionate about getting in touch with you and discovering your services/products better.Even though red is considered to be the most intense color in the color wheel, always be careful with its balanced use on your site. Too much red can turn people off your offers. Balance it (or any other bright color) with more neutral hues, and do not forget to use whitespace smartly.

We hope that the aforementioned tips and infographics will help you come up with an optimal color choice for your own website to increase conversion rates. Keep your audience stimulated and enthusiastic enough to come and hire you.


Pics: Kathrine Crayon

Katherine Crayon

Katherine Crayon, copywriter reporting on tech news and all aspects of the web design industry. Anyone looking for more inspirational posts, tips and advice or simply the latest industry news.

By Katherine Crayon

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