Are Your Text and Background Colors Driving Prospects to Your Competition?
October 10, 2008 by Ryan Wheaton
Filed under Online Marketing
If you’re going to go through the trouble of building a website, be sure to make it easy on the eyes of your visitors so you keep them on your site as long as possible.
Keeping them on your site or pages longer helps converting prospects to students. It’s all about having the right contrast between your text and your background.
Choosing bad color combinations with respect to the text and background on your website can make it difficult to read and hard on the eyes. This usually produces one response: hit the back button.
Why go through the trouble of creating a website that repels people and pushes them to look elsewhere?
Design using the right color combinations will make a world of difference. Your appointment book and your prospects will thank you. Try and make things as easy on the eyes as possible and have good contrast between your text and background.
Too many martial arts school sites I see are trying to get too clever… too different… and it only ends up getting in the way. Your visitors came to your website for information and to evaluate you as a possibility.
If visitors don’t stay on your website because it’s hard on the eyes, you’re losing prospects even before they read your content… before seeing your offer… before they take any other action.
By providing a bad user experience, you’re instantly turning off prospects to what incredible benefits your martial arts school provides and pushing them to leave your site.
So what color text and background should you use?
Think about it this way: When you pick up a newspaper, book, or magazine, what color text do the use? What color paper? We all grew up with reading black on white. Not white on black. STOP TRYING TO CHANGE THIS!
To illustrate, check out this website that perfectly represents this point: White on black is EXTREMELY hard on the eyes! So is just about anything other than black text on white background. Be sure to read it from top to bottom to get the full experience.
Does your website have anything but black text on a white background? If so, change it now and reduce the number of prospects you are repelling!
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I'm Ryan Wheaton and I work with martial arts school owners to help them attract more students. Many martial arts school owners are confused at how to best market their business and feel awkward in selling situations. I help them overcome those challenges to become confident and competent in marketing and selling their services - helping them become more profitable so they can live the lifestyle they want to live.
I can’t believe how many website owners insist on having a black background with light text. It does not matter how good your content is because visitors will not stick around to read it. I always hit the back button when I land on a website with a black background.
Thanks for this post Ryan. It is nice to have a link that Illustrates the problem with black backgrounds. My eyes are still trying to adjust after reading that.
Well, we have gone through so many changes in this last year and the last one being to UPDATE our website (it used to be a real hack job drag and drop that I did myself)… then Ryan sent me the link to this article and NOW I have to go back through the templates on my site builder (which is where I got gray on black in the first place) and find one that is more acceptable. We chose this because our logo is black and white and looks amazing and dramatic with white on black.
Yiyiyiyiyi. Improvement is a never ending process.