Is there any truth to the idea that the color of a web page affects the amount of traffic you get??
 

I was talking to a web designer a few days ago about helping me build a new website. I had a really cool idea for the design of the site that would mostly black background with some really sleek buttons and a eye-catching logo.
He insisted that the website should be more white with a white background...which I just thought would seem kinda boring. He says that the color of my website would affect my traffic by 50 percent or more! That means if I decided to stick with my idea of a really cool sleek black-ish website I would lose half the traffic I could have potentially had if my site was white!!

Can anyone here offer any sort of credibility to this for me?? I'm having a hard time believing this is true.

Your web designer is talking out of his penis.

That's what I was thinking...but he seemed very convinced that that's how it is.
He almost had me convinced, but I've been around just long enough to know that it sounds a little crazy.

Google only likes white web pages.

Your designer is an idiot.

Only one of the above statements is correct.

Google only like white pages??? How come??
...and how the hell can Google tell the color of a website?

studies show that white people mistrust black webpages and are wary of entering cc of personal info into them. something to consider.

Are you serious?!! There are studies for this stuff?

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archiv...s_readability/

"I know I am not the only person to find it very uncomfortable to read text on sites with inverted, high contrast designs.

...

I also find that high contrasts between different areas of the page cause problems. An example is when the main content area uses dark-on-light and there is an inverted sidebar right next to it. It hurts my eyes, and if possible I make my browser window narrow enough to hide the inverted part of the page when I visit sites that have that kind of design.

...

You should also consider what Mark Boulton has to say in Five simple steps to better typography:

When reversing colour out, eg white text on black, make sure you increase the leading, tracking and decrease your font-weight. This applies to all widths of Measure. White text on a black background is a higher contrast to the opposite, so the letterforms need to be wider apart, lighter in weight and have more space between the lines.
"

MCD's keep the interior of their restaurants in redish color to get people to get the fuck outta there faster

color effects a lot of things but its very complicated, to say you cant have a black bg is stupid too...look at pornhub/redtube

http://www.amren.com/

they have done some research into web design and ecommerce. :2 cents:

Black BG websites are proven to convert worse.

qft

People are conditioned to read black on white, not the other way around. Think books, magazines, anything printed really. It's easier on the eye. That being said, it's bound to impact transaction rates at some level.

There have also been studies about other colors as well specifically when money is involved. The worst thing you can do it put green on a billing page, it'll cause rates to drop.

Blue, on the other hand, is one of the best colors... check out every major dating site; e-harmony, match, singlesnet... all blue and they've all spent hundreds of thousands on A/B testing...

No matter what the site is, I absolutely will not read a page with white text on a black background. My eyes are sensitive to light so the contrast causes the text to 'burn in' when I read it (when I look away I still see the text)

I hate the white area on youtube around the videos, Fuck! white pages hurt my eyes,

getting traffic not directly
but a bad color scheme can decrease your conversion and inscrease your bounce rate (which will drop your ranking if they go back to google from your page)

I have to agree with this, from The Best Page In The Universe:

Some webmasters have spent years tweaking their layout and designing their site, and very few get any traffic. This site, as shitty as it looks, gets over 1 million visits per month. I use large fonts also as a protest against all the stylish garbage you see out there. When I go to a web site, I WANT TO READ THE CONTENT. Trust me, that micro-font everyone uses isn't nearly as original as they think. I've chosen a black background for most of my text because it's easier on the eyes than staring at a white screen. Think about it: your monitor is not a piece of paper, no matter how hard you try to make it one. Staring at a white background while you read is like staring at a light bulb (don't believe me? Try turning off the lights next time you use a word processor). Would you stare at a light bulb for hours at a time? Not if you want to keep your vision.

Now, that would apply to text heavy sites. For pics and vids of naked bitches, who looks at the background?

I completely agree... pure white and pure black should almost NEVER be used...

Unfortunately a lot of good design principals have been lost in the digital transition. Font sizing, color theory, white space, to name a few... Too many "design" schools, especially "web design" and "digital art" schools, pass over good design principals and head straight to learning the technology used to create it... great now you can design CRAP much faster than before :P

google can tell the color of a website the same way your browser can :2 cents:

Says the guy from this site:
http://www.bestxxxporn.com

White vs black color background does not cause 50% effect. This is all too exaggerated.

Your designer sounds like he's referring to a mainstream technique of power colors.
Whites and blues tend to work better on main steam sites simply cause they work on the psychological factors of trust and Innocent. Reds represent love and emotions, etc.
However in Adult I've found doesn't really matter what color you use.
I'd recommend using an adult designer and not a mainstream one. Your guy is thinking too hard.

Do a google search on design colors you'll see tons of articles backing up the theory of psychological color schemes.

Ok, well...Im not really getting any hard evidence from anyone here...but it at least sounds like we are all in agreement for the most part.

The only reference to color and traffic that I'm aware of is that Google will blacklist you for using same color text as your background. For example, white text on white background, although not visible to the reader, is considered as an attempt to fool the search engines.

don't take my word for it since I'm not a designer, but in my experience, if the site has a lot of text white or pale backgrounds converts 75%-100% better than dark backgrounds. When there are a lot of images, like videos or thumbs, I think dark background is slightly better.

IMHO people is used to newspapers and books, therefore they like to see black on white text or at least dark on pale. You'll hardly found a successful site with lots of text that has dark background, so there must be something to it. Ask any newspaper, Facebook, MySpace, SE, social media or such if in doubt

actaully mcdonalds is a red color schema(yellow, red, orange) because red makes you feel warmer, and warmer people eat more food. I learned that my first year in art school.

I mostly agree with you, but my testing was done in adult sites, I don't own any mainstream site, so it works in adult as well. The red thing is a must, I usually have any important link or button in red and it really makes a difference in clicks, so you're right there.

Either way, back to the OP , I crazy as it sounds I think your designer might be pretty spot on. However, you should look for similar sites you like and do some research on the traffic they get, that should give you a better idea on how things will work for your site :2 cents:

yes, there is a phsychology to the use of colour:2 cents:

So that's why ratios suck on those sites huh lol

you don't think pornhub / redtube ratios suck? I assume you weren't one of the idiots buying ads on those sites, those beautiful 0.08% clicks / traffic were really something :(

90% of all trusted text people read is black on white.

White backgrounds on extreme hardcore sites looks like trash.... and dark backgrounds makes the content stand out better.

Overall though, I white, black, yellow, red.. whatever - truly as long as it doesn't look out of place for the niche/design, then it's perfect for porn.

yes, unless the site has a lot of text, I like dark backgrounds: black, maroon, dark blue. Some posters mentioned Facebook and newspapers, but unless we are talking about some social site or adult search engine, I don't think black will affect anything and I really like the dark bg approach. This being said, if it's some kind of social site, using anything dark will kill your site for sure

Very nice discussion by the way :thumbsup

Color affect opinion absolutely. Which could affect your return visitors, and most importantly conversions. There has been tones of research poured into researching color theory in advertising. Different colors induce different emotions and feelings. Different colors work better for different projects. Blue supposedly gives off an impression on reliability, calmness, and comfort. Green supposedly put of feeling of success. Reds and hot colors supposedly action colors, that put of feelings of passion and drive. Or so they say.

You'll see trends in different niches if you look. For instance, you could notice how a whack of the best converting women's weightloss offers have green/purple theme to their landers?

Color affects opinion most definitely :2 cents: