Top 4 Psychology Hacks That Will Boost Your Website Performance

Have you thought about how the color or shape of the BUY button on your website can affect the desire of visitors to click on it, or how does the position of the text on your page make a difference for your readers? These and many more aspects can be determining factors for your website performance and all of them are guided by basic rules of psychology.

In the constant struggle for web dominance, small businesses cannot afford to overlook even the tiniest features that can help boost their website performance. According to statistics provided by QuickSprout, color accounts for 85% of the reason why we purchase a specific product and full-colored ads in magazines are recognized 26% more than black and white ones.

So let’s analyze how these and many other psychology hacks can help you not only boost your website performance, but also increase your conversion rates.

1. Using Color Psychology

Color psychology is a branch of the broader field of behavioral psychology, dealing specifically with human reactions to colors. If we take into consideration a research that states that it takes only 90 seconds for a customer to form an opinion about a product, along with the fact that 62-90% of that interaction is determined by the color of the product alone, you can get a clear picture of why this is such an important factor for your website.

How do we go about using color psychology to our advantage? There are two things that we need to think of, the color used for your brand, and the color scheme used on your website. Research shows that color can help increase your brand recognition by up to 80%. According to Neal Patel, Performable was able to increase its click through rate by 21% by only changing its call-to-action button color from green to red. He personally has also experienced an increase in conversion rates by 38% after changing his call-to-action button from blue to yellow on his homepage.

Tip: Explore in depth which messages are sent by different colors so you can choose the scheme that works best for you. 

2. Page Organization

When someone lands on your page, there are certain things that they need to see in order to feel comfortable, and want to stay longer. This “feeling” is based on pattern recognition and familiarity. You can always use taglines to help with discerning purpose, and your web page design can both complement and reinforce that message.

Content organization should be a priority when it comes to any web design, however, it is important to take into consideration the space it takes up on the site. Sometimes less is more. Having a certain amount of ‘white space’ on your homepage is very important since it provides visitors with a resting place. Having an overcrowded page can at times have a suffocating effect and your potential buyers might have an opposite reaction and want to leave as soon as possible.

By taking time to organize the content on your page, and including both white space and an appropriate color scheme, you will create a pleasant environment which will be much more inviting to the website’s visitors. Keep in mind, it is always a good option to have your logo in the top left corner, since most people tend to scan web content in a ‘Z’ pattern.

Tip: Research best practices when it comes to website layout. Is hamburger menu always the right option? When “flat” does not work? 

3. Using the Right Imagery

Images on your website have three main purposes:

• draw attention and set a positive mood
• provide credibility
• help visitors better visualize a product or a service.

For example, mirror neurons are responsible for our tendency to empathize with others – even if it is just an image of a person. If we use a picture of a smiling face, our prospect will smile too. On the other hand, using an image of an angry or sad person creates those same emotions in your prospects.

Naturally, in most cases, you want your visitors to feel happy and relaxed when they land on your company’s website. The reason is simple, happy people are more open and interested in trying new things, hopefully your brand, product or service. However, some brands want to cash in on shock value, which can at times be successful, and at times have a completely opposite effect.

Tip: When it comes to images, try A/B testing to see what tone and emotion gets the best response. 

4. Benefiting from Psychological Triggers

Psychological and emotional triggers can influence your web page visitors to take certain actions. This applies even to your domain name – which we can view as the first psychological trigger. You want a domain name that sends a message, that’s why many of our community members went with CTA domains such as about.me, kiip.me, place.me and others.

Next, it’s is important to weave your website with the right emotional triggers to get them to opt for your product or service, thus boosting the conversion rate of your website. For example, your home page content can have triggers like specific fonts, wording, images – all of which are meant to reinforce the desired communication and prompt user engagement.

One of the most efficient psychology triggers is the scarcity trigger – a 2012 wristwatch advertising experiment showed that the average consumer was willing to pay 50% more for watches that were marketed as “exclusive editions” with “limited stock”. This means that people tend to associate scarcity with higher value. Based on this, you can expect benefit from including phrases such as “limited time only”, “last chance” or even “today’s value deal” on your landing page. Of course, being  truthful there is very important.

Tip: Social psychology can give you a lot of insight into how we make decisions. Use the findings to create better products and services and market them better.  

Takeaways

By implementing psychology into our web design, we are able to significantly improve not only the coveted conversion rate, but brand recognition as well. For a small or medium business, this type of improvement can make the difference between success or failure. So don’t be lazy, do your research and get the most memorable webpage that will successfully motivate your future visitors to BUY, BUY, BUY!

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