Tapping Into The Visual Stimulus Of Your Web Site Visitors
Author: Dan J. Fry
"Oh, my eyes, my eyes! What an eye sore. Quick, click away! Click
away!"

Suddenly I wake up in a cold sweat. What happened. Oh, then I
realize: it was just a nightmare.

O.k., I'm not crazy, and no I haven't had this dream before. But
think about this: what would you do if you came to a site
littered with either tons of different colors, loud pinks,
purples, greens and reds mixed incoherently, or more animations
and graphics than the rods and cones of your inner eye can
possibly absorb? If your like me I simply go "click, bye-bye".

Our visual stimulus is ever more so important on the web than
almost anywhere else. The internet is most definitely about
information. But, that information is shown graphically. So, if
you want to keep people at your site, first appeal to their
visual stimulus.

There are a few guidelines that you should adhere to when
designing your site, following known research results on colors
that elicit certain psychological responses. The bottom
line is that it is hard enough to market on the internet today,
why make it harder by irritating your visitors.

(1) Colors and Their Effect: I prefer blue and white. In general
blue seems to elicit a sense of trust and white a sense of
purity. Gold, on the other hand is the color of wealth and
prosperity, something we are all working towards. So, with
respect to general internet marketing, these colors tend to work
the best. They are easy on the eyes and don't strike up a sense
of danger, such as with the color red. Of course, the colors also
depend on purpose of your site. If selling baby items, pink,
which represents femininity, and baby blue, representing weakness
may work quite well. It depends in part on site content. A high
tech site selling electronic components may do better with greys,
silvers, and black.

(2) Animations and Banners: Animations are nice, but can take
time to load and be distracting. Use them to focus the attention
of a visitor. Place them at a single page location, at the center
or all at the left side for instance. If you use more than one
and they are scattered all over the page, where can you expect
your eyes to focus. Yep, you heard right - click, bye, bye.

Banners can also give you problems if there are two many and not
well organized. Pay attention to the color design to ensure that
it matches your site. Remember, no eye sores here. Overall,
banner are known not to have the highest clickthrough rates.

(3) Flash Media: Flash media animations are steadily gaining
popularity and many sites are tailoring their start-up page to
include large flash animations. Beware. In online home
businesses, your primary purpose is content. Only fit in flash
where it is strictly meant to guide the visual stimulus to a part
of your site. I know, I know, it does look cool. But cool doesn't
and never will build sales out of potential prospects.

A few further resources that are of particular interest here are

(1)http://www.internet-marketing-research.net ,
(2)http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html ,
(3)http://psychology.about.com/library/weekly/aa031501a.htm .

As a good rule of thumb, if it hurts your eyes, it probably hurts
others as well. Keep it simple, professional, easy to look at
with color used just in the right place to highlight your
content. Content is what will build your home based business.
Elicit a visual response from your visitors to drive them to your
content.

About the Author

Dan J. Fry is an independent researcher and owner of
e-Kinetic.com, a site devoted to providing resources for small
budget home businesses. He has a PhD in Physics and is married
with two daughters and two cats. Subscribe to his free E-Zine on
home business resources at mailto:e-kinetic@GetResponse.com or by
visiting his Online Home Based
Business Resources site.