Color is frequently disregarded in the business of improving sites for better returns on investments. Internet site sales can be significantly influenced by simply changing its colours. Ever come across an internet site that uses some cool aggregate of print and background colors? If you need to experience an eye-twisting headache, try reading yellow print on a blue background.

The explanation why you see black type on a white background so much is that it’s the best color mix for reading, both on and offline.

And since it is even harder to read text on a monitor than it is on paper, we must all be particularly careful with the colours we select for our web sites, or suffer less-than-optimal site traffic and repeat visitors.

Color choice should also be dictated by other, less clear goals, when coming up with or re-vamping a site. It is important to notice that different colours invoke different feelings, are related to particular ideas and say different things in each society. For example, green often times is related to freshness or money, which is obvious if you concentrate on it. But each color does this, and some of the feelings and ideas are more refined.

For instance, white means pure, easy, or goodness and purple can be related to royalty or class. What’s more, each color brings with it both negative and positive ideas.

The feelings and ideas that you associate with particular colours may differ from other folks’s associations, but there are themes that run through each color. These are some : Red : Positive : Sense of power, strength, action, enthusiasm, sexuality Negative : hate, forcefulness, impulsiveness, impatience, intimidation, conquest, violence and vengeance Yellow : Positive : Caution, brightness, intelligence, joy, organization, Spring time Negative : Feedback, idleness, or cynicism Blue : Positive : Tranquility, love, approval, patience, understanding, cooperation, comfort, faithfulness and security Negative : Fear, coldness, passivity and depression Orange : Positive : Determination, bravery, confidence, friendliness, and happiness, warmth, excitement and energy Stupidity : Stupidity, deficiency, sluggishness and supremacy Purple : Positive : Royalty, class, faith Negative : Bruised or foreboding Green : Positive : Cash, health, food, nature, hope, expansion, freshness, relaxing, sharing, and responsiveness Negative : Envy, greediness, constriction, guilt, envy and disorder Black : Positive : Dramatic, sophisticated, committed, major Negative : Malevolent, death, stupidity, coldness White : Positive : Pure, fresh, straightforward, cleanliness or goodness Negative : Blind, winter, cold, distant A major target of marketers is to invoke emotion in their audience. The battle between logic and emotion that rages in each of is generally won by emotion the majority of the time. By selecting the colours of our internet sites and online media with deliberate care, we are purposefully trying to invoke a particular emotional reaction which will turbo-charge sales. So pick your colours rigorously. Not only do colours waken feelings, but they can communicate messages or ideas too. The blues of Oak Web Works’s brand swirl into the reds of ClickitTicket.com’s brand. This may be translated as a melding of the 2 organisations, which is what the words beneath say, in association with. Also, the red of http://www.oakwebworks.com / tickets / indicates action and eagerness, 2 necessities for folks who need to attend theater, sports events or concerts. Another online ticket internet site, http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com /, has a different color approach. Its main colours are blue and purple, giving the site a comforting, secure and complicated feel. The main header on each page has all of the colours in the rainbow in it, a collage of photographs, with the word ‘Tickets’ in enormous, white font. These colors are based totally on the particular audience and market of our customer and the messages the customer wants to communicate to the remainder of the globe.

If more than 2 or three colours are used, things have a tendency to look a little messy, and the power of any one color is watered down too much, so we most frequently stick with 2 colours. When I’m undecided precisely which colours or combos to use, I frequently start trying different things, then take a step backwards and ask myself what my selected colours are conveying to me. You’d be stunned at how creative and correct your intuition can be. if the customer already has a longtime brand, we’ll always make efforts to match the colours of the internet site with the first colors of the company. It’s not smart to have print collateral material one color and the site a completely not related color. All promoting channels need to stay consistent, with one face only. Since web site visitors all have different platforms, different monitors, and different settings for their screen resolutions, the colours you select for your site might not always be rendered the very same way on your website visitors’ monitors. That is the reason why there are’Web Safe’ colours that have a much higher possibility of looking the same irrespective of the user’s computer, monitor or settings. Many graphics programs, including Adobe Photoshop, have a feature that permits you to select Web Safe colours only. Bear in mind the class of technology today permits for Web designers to be in a position to wander from the’Web Safe’ colours more. So do not be overly worried if you opt to use un-safe’ Web colours, possibilities are that the majority of your audience has the PCs critical to view your internet site the precise way you intended. It’s a large amount of fun playing with colours but each choice you make includes a group of pre-defined societal meanings and feelings, so select with deliberate care.

Google AdSense can be a great money making tool if you know how to use it and is definitely the highest paying and most popular PPC (Pay Per Click) network in existence. If you don’t have an AdSense account, it is worth signing up for one and getting approved even if you don’t plan to place any ads in the near future.

Anyway, to earn money from AdSense there obviously needs to be people looking at your adverts. So, this means that you will need two things; traffic and visible ads.

Placing your AdSense units in the best places can be key to getting more clicks – I have seen many high traffic sites getting less clicks than sites with lower traffic purely due to poor ad placement.

However, you need to be careful not to breach any of the AdSense Programme Policies, or you will risk your AdSense account getting banned. The AdSense policies related to ad placement are:

Google ads, search boxes or search results may not be:

• Integrated into a software application of any kind, including toolbars.
• Displayed in pop-ups or pop-unders.
• Placed in emails or in email programmes.
• Obscured by elements on a page.
• Placed on any non-content-based page.
• Placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads.
• Placed on pages whose content or URL could confuse users into thinking it is associated with Google due to the misuse of logos, trademarks or other brand features.
• Placed on, within or alongside other Google products or services in a manner that violates the policies of that product or service.

Obviously the key to successful placement is to experiment; place ads in certain places of your pages for a week at a time to find which placement results in the best CTR (Click Through Rate) and revenue.

Diagram of where AdSense units should perform best on a page

The image to the right shows, after many experiments, the places where AdSense adverts should perform best. Obviously some of the areas on certain sites are not possible – but you should try out roughly where the darkest colors are.

The darker the colors, the more visits are attracted to the area, hence they are more likely to see and click on adverts.

However, sometimes it is best not to always go with the darkest areas you can use – this may have a negative impact on the look of your website and put off people from returning or even reading your content in the first place. Personally, I think you are best off placing the content where it looks good, but using the chart to the right to avoid the completely white areas.

As I have said before though, the key to it is to experiment – try different ad placements to get the best for your site.

The next article related to AdSense will be about blending and making ads look like part of the site.