So you have to set up a good grouping of graphics and content on your website, but have you ever thought about the colors? If not, then you must, because colors are as vital part of your website as the graphics or content. The colors you select for your website design creates a lot of disparity. Being conscious that a smattering of colors can lead to an emotional reaction is the key to choose right colors for a website. Knowing what colors have a calming result and which cause feelings of anticipation can choose color scheme very easily. Colors can also be used to make difference and awareness to a design. Colors can direct users to definite parts of a webpage.

Color perception changes from one person to another. Color perception problems are more wide spread than people think, and have more causes and variations.

Colors have a deep affect on the moods of people. There are few colors that have certain effect on a person and summon particular emotions in them and as we know, emotions can be very hazardous to business. Let us see how colors effect the emotions of people through website:

• Black is related with power, sophistication, modification, riches and mystery. In designing for the website, it can be used successfully with bolder colors to generate good contrast.
• White is related with clean, simple, calm and purity. White color is used on websites a lot; it can communicate a sense of style and suggests that the content of website is sturdy enough to stand alone without any strong visual aid.
• With intensions to lust, anger, fire and power – the color Red, to be used carefully, as it can be a great way to direct the user’s concentration to a certain area.
• Related with color Blue, gives feeling of cold, royalty, stillness and air, blue is the best-used color for corporate websites. It generates a very different reaction to color Red.
• Green represents nature, environment, peace and luck. Green is a successful color to use for a soothing consequence.
• Envoy of joy, happiness, warning and energy, the color Yellow has a comparable affect to Red, although it is not as popular. Yellow can be used to highlight areas of a website. However, if it’s used too much, it can be an irresistible.
• Inspiring up feelings of style, novelty, fashion and modification, the color Grey is frequently used on places that cover fashion, design and tech.
• Purple is an amalgamation of blue and red. It does have the highlights of red, but has more bold properties than blue. It mixes up the images of royalty, faith and luxury. However, it isn’t regularly used color in designing websites.
• Brown, mainly the lighter end can be very calming. Beige is also a popular color in web design as it gives an earthy and tranquil feeling. It also means tradition, poverty and Earth.
• White is a great color to utilize on a website’s background to create a sagacity of space and modernism.

Knowing about what colors symbolize and their subconscious power can be of great advantage when designing websites. Knowing about the target audience, designers can choose colors considerately which connect to the end user thus making the website look eye-catching and tempting.

E-commerce websites can be amended by directing the user in the direction of the purchase button by drawing attention and building contrast.

About Author

Author is working with Plaveb Corporation.

Author has vast experience in web design and has good knowledge in choosing colors for website. He has more than 5 years of experience in web designing.

2 Comments

• At April 25, 2010, David Saunders wrote:

  I agree that color scheme is important as for example graphics.. Everybody who design sites should know a lot about that.

• At May 11, 2010, ownlimited wrote:

  hi. how the relationship of color composition and speed of loading pages?

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My general philosophy on upsell packages is that they should be unique content that makes using the original product much easier for the customer. So those customers that are willing to pay for the upsell package get an easier experience than those who don’t. For my ebook, video tutorials made a lot of sense.

Unfortunately, the freely available products for creating video tutorials fall just a bit short of being as convenient as they could be. My biggest problem is that I’m often demonstrating using a variety of applications, which require dynamically zooming in to show detail. The paid products will do that, but the free ones don’t, at least not so that I can work with them.

Another problem is me…I’m a perfectionist, and it’s nearly impossible to get through even a short video segment without making some sort of mistake. I know that I need to move on and get over it, but I keep wanting to redo the video to fix the mistake (and of course I’ll make a different mistake).

Obviously my talents don’t run to creating videos! I’ll keep at it, though, and get them done.

10 Comments

• At November 18, 2008, On Stage Lighting wrote:

  Hey Jay,

  All of us looking for new conent channels eventually look to creating video content. This brings new promotional channels, like YouTube, and the possibility of improved personal connection with your audience.

  However, making videos (even screen dump tutorials) is harder than it looks. Even A listers like Aaron Wall at SEObook don't always get it right (Aaron has made a few "talking head" videos which IMO could knock his percieved value as he is not a presenter).

  I am also putting the video content on the back burner until I can spend time improving my skills or justify paying someone else to do it for me.

• At November 18, 2008, Jay wrote:

  I think I'd do better at a talking head video (since teaching is what I do in my day job) than at the video-demonstrations of software and procedures.

  Paying someone to do it for me is getting more and more attractive, but as you say, hard to justify. We'll see if the frustration level reaches a point where it becomes easier to justify!

• At November 19, 2008, Caroline's Debit card loans wrote:

  Sometimes you just have to pay to get the tools you need.:)

  Being a perfectionist is a problem, you find you change some things so many times they end up worse than they were when you started. The trick is to know when to stop.

  One way I do this is if I feel I am getting a bit picky about something I leave it and do something else then come back to it the next day with a fresh perspective.

• At November 20, 2008, Graham Cox wrote:

  I think Internet marketing through videos is definitely on the rising and no longer a new method to reach out the audience. Some of the sites like Youtube have thousands of videos just being put to promote their website or some sort of things.

• At November 27, 2008, Connie wrote:

  I'm working on learning to make better videos too. I have to learn the art of editing which to me is very difficult. I end up laughing because I make so many mistakes in my videos. Maybe I should just leave them in and do a blooper edition.

• At December 9, 2008, Leslie wrote:

  This is exactly what I'm trying to get into actually. I just started a program that teaches you how to add video to your blog professionally and it convinced me to get into it. There is soooo much that can be done where that is concerned. I decided to run out and buy equipment, lighting and so on and build a Home Video Studio in my basement, lol.

  I hear what you are saying about being a perfectionist. I have that same problem. However, then I look around the net at people who are doing very well with videos on their blogs and realize that they have a bunch of mistakes, but it doesn't necessarily take away from their blogs. My recommendation would be the following:

  1. Plan out a simple outline of your videos. For this I am using a free program called Free Mind. You can google it and find it.

  2. Write out your script. If you are a perfectionist, this will really help.

  3. Get teleprompter software and install it on your computer. You can google that too.

  4. I went out and bought some construction lights and bounce them off the ceiling. It makes a world of difference in the quality of the video.

  If you're a teacher, then the presentation will be the easy part. Just keep it simple and you should be fine. I'm also a teacher (highschool science and math) so the presentation is the "easy" part.

  Best of luck. Don't give up on video. It's a great thing!

• At December 12, 2008, Jay wrote:

  Hi Leslie, thanks so much for the tip about telepromter software! I never even considered that, but it makes so much sense. I think that tip alone will help my efforts considerably, along with writing out the script. I'd been approaching this like a classroom setting (where I ad lib a lot) rather than a speech, but I think the speech model (write it out and practice it first) is a better one.

• At December 12, 2008, Leslie wrote:

  Not a Problem. Actually, I think it's best to look at it as a combination of a classroom setting and a speech. If you are trying to provide people with information, teaching is the way to do it. But the script really does help even though you are teaching. I just did my first video and it was not the best, lol. However, I didn't follow my own advice. I just wanted to test out my webcam and I put something together really quick. It ended up seeming like I was just rambling, lol. I'll be writing scripts from now on.

• At January 13, 2009, Galin Terry wrote:

  I think video is one of the great tools that help to connect with your audience. Sometimes a professional, well-done video may replace a long story in written form. By the way, for me it is more interesting to watch either to read.

• At November 21, 2010, Gary Moore wrote:

  There are several good free programs out there that can help you with your videos. These have low learning curves and have helped many with their own videos. Anaimoto.com, Google it and Camtasia both free are easyto use. Open Office (Free) has a built in generic Power Point program, that makes excellent slide show videos. there are others, but I can't think of them at the moment. Have a great weekend,

  Gary Moore

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As a reasonably healthy adult geek, I knew intellectually the opportunities that the Internet provided for people who couldn’t work otherwise. But I didn’t really appreciate how much opportunity there was until I started the Advisory Panel and met Connie (she writes Brain Foggles, along with other blogs). I get migraines, and moan and complain when they’re bad, and pretty much am laid up for the duration. But I cannot imagine coping with what Connie copes with every day, and still being cheerful and energetic, and earning her income online to boot.

I applaud the people who are blogging about invisible illness, and the folks at Rest Ministries who are sponsoring this conference.

If you have a chronic condition, or know someone who has, head on over to one of the links above.

2 Comments

• At September 9, 2008, Connie wrote:

  Thanks for sharing this info Jay! And thanks for the compliments too. I hope that people will take a look at the website if they can't listen to the speakers. There's an important message to this conference - don't judge people by how they look. It's an old message but it's one that needs to be thought of in a new way.

• At September 9, 2008, Jay wrote:

  Hi Connie, I hope the event gets all the exposure it deserves. It's definitely an important message, both for the people who might feel helpless because of a chronic illness, and the people who might only see the illness, and not the person.

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I wanted to talk a bit about the biggest lesson I’ve learned from watching freshmen as they come into college for the first time, and how that lesson applies to newcomers to online marketing.

College Is Hard!

Most of the freshmen find college a challenge. Not necessarily the class material, but the entire experience. Being away from home, entirely responsible for your own actions, answerable to nobody.

A small percentage of them will self-destruct that first year. They’ll decide to ditch class and not do their work, because it’s their choice. Nobody is hounding them to be responsible, it’s up to them. If they’re lucky, they’ll come out of it and start making good decisions. If they’re not, they’ll drop out of college entirely.

When you first start working online, you’re in a similar position. You’ve worked for other people (and probably still do), and in your day job have all sorts of checks and balances to make sure you do what you’re supposed to do.

Online, though, it’s all you. Nobody is going to punish you if you watch a movie instead of working on a mini-site. Nobody is going to yell at you if you knock off an hour early instead of finishing that ebook.

Yet that sort of freedom is an illusion. If you don’t put in the time and the work, you won’t succeed. If you aren’t motivated to start, the chances are good that your motivation will get less and less as time goes by.

You’ll have to be your own boss and force yourself to do the work, to put in the time.

Or you could always drop out, and head back to the day job for good.

It’s your decision.

1 Comments

• At August 28, 2008, Eva White wrote:

  Life is a choice that you make everyday. I think what you put into your living experience comes back to you tenfold in the future.

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After all, we all know how easy it is to become distracted by various notifications coming into our email. Bloggers usually get emails when someone leaves a comment, or a comment needs to be moderated. If you run a forum, you probably get notified when a new member registers. If you participate in forums, you have tons of notifications from threads you’ve participated in, telling you that someone has added a new post to the thread. And then there are the tons of emails you get out of the blue, or from lists you’ve subscribed to, that all want your attention.

This has become a big thing lately, and lots of people will offer you advice and coaching, generally for a fee.

But the key to managing your time online is easy: Don’t get distracted!

Working online, you probably have your email up constantly when you’re on the computer. It may even be one of those programs that plays a chime when you get new mail. New emails practically beg to be processed immediately. My first thought, when I check to see who the email is from, is, “I can reply to that in just a couple of minutes, why put it off?” Over time I’ve gotten a reputation for being prompt to reply to emails.

Those two minutes add up, though, when you count all the emails you need to reply to over the course of a day. More damaging by far, though, is that while you can answer that email in just two minutes, it will take you more than two minutes to get back into the mind-set of what you were doing before you took your email break. It’s like having the answer to a question on the tip of your tongue, and then having someone ask you an entirely unrelated question. It takes me days sometimes to remember what I was going to say.

Online time management is all about focus. You don’t have to schedule your day, but if you sit down and feel like working on a web site you are creating, block off an hour or two to do nothing but that. Close your email program, and don’t check email until your hour or two is finished (breathe, it’ll be okay…everyone can wait for a reply that long, or they would have called you instead). Don’t open up a web browser to pop onto another web site, unless it’s research you need to do for the one you’re creating.

After the hour or two you’ve allocated, take a break. The more time you spend on a particular task, the less you get done. You could process your emails during your break, but you’ll get more out of getting away from the computer and doing something physical. Get your blood moving and your heart pumping, even if you just take a walk around your neighborhood. You’ll be refreshed then, to sit down and spend another hour or two doing something online.

Other distractions are harder to cope with, such as kids and pets. But try to isolate yourself for the hour or two that you’ll be working, so you can focus and concentrate. You’ll get far more done that way.

We’ve become so used to reacting to online events as soon as they happen that it might take you a while to get comfortable with choosing when to process emails, post forum replies, etc. But the result in terms of productivity is well worth it!

8 Comments

• At June 21, 2008, Connie wrote:

  That is one of my biggest hurdles when it comes to blogging. I say that I don't have enough time but I'm not managing it well. I'm easily distracted and with Twitter, Plurk, emails, Facebook, games, etc. I can spend hours off task.

  Great suggestions that have got me thinking!

• At June 22, 2008, Eric Go wrote:

  I think also not to mention surfing other sites that might not be as useful than we think.

• At June 22, 2008, Barry wrote:

  Great tip about taking a break in going out for the walk. I often forget how much my productivity drops, and how strained my eyes become when I spent many hours trying to get work done. Regards the chimes for e-mail I got rid of that long time ago, way to distracting. I check my e-mail three times the day, nothing is that urgent.

  What I need to work on now the poster above mentioned "surfing other sites that might not be as useful than we think." That is my main time drain right now. I get looking for things, doing research, and end up going from one thing to another to another to another. Next thing I know a couple hours have passed.

• At June 23, 2008, magnesium wrote:

  Thanks for the suggestions given. They worth pondering over..

• At June 23, 2008, Tom At The Home Business Archive wrote:

  Good tips! I have a daily schedule with tasks for each day.It is necessary to have a schedule or I would not get anything done.

• At June 23, 2008, Jay wrote:

  Tom, I envy people who can work to a schedule. I've tried, but find that I'm most productive when I work on what I feel most motivated to do, rather than trying to stick to a schedule. It means I'm often working at the last minute, since that's when motivation is highest!

• At June 25, 2008, Eva White wrote:

  I like to pretend that I go out to work and work only during those hours. The time pressure keeps me focused on the task on hand and I avoid surfing for the sake of surfing.

• At June 25, 2008, magnesium wrote:

  What you suggest is very interesting and really worth to think over

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I’m assuming that you’re either not a programmer yourself, or you don’t feel that programming the service yourself is the best use of your time.

You want to find a programmer who is going to be reliable, skilled, who won’t charge you an arm and a leg, and who (ideally) would become a long-term partner in your projects. Getting all of that in a single person is quite the task!

One option is to go to a web site designed to help you find freelance programmers. Elance is one of them, RentACoder is another.

My personal experience with sites like that haven’t been great. I’ve had a project accepted, and then later told that they wouldn’t be able to complete it after all. I’ve had bids given, and then later found them trying to increase the amount they get by nitpicking the project requirements.

But, other people have had better results, and some have even found their long-term partners on such sites, so your mileage may vary.

If you live in a college town, you might check with the computer science department of the college to see if there are any students interested in taking on your project. In any CS department there is always at least one student who is a whiz with web programming, and could probably knock out your project in a short time. Being a student, they often won’t charge you what you’d pay a professional to do the same job.

Another option is to hook up online with a programmer who is looking to make money online, but lacks some of the skills you have. A true partnership benefits both of you, and makes it far more likely that you’ll both see your projects through to completion.

If you already work with a good programmer, how did you come across them?

4 Comments

• At June 10, 2008, Caroline wrote:

  You can find people in forums as well, you may not always have such a range of programmers to choose from but they may turn out to be more reliable because of the forum.

• At June 12, 2008, Ajith Prasad Edassery wrote:

  Elance is a good place and DP forums as well, I guess. Btw, I liked your blog's theme...

  Ajith

  A Programmer

• At June 15, 2008, komodo dragon wrote:

  Elance is a pretty good place to search .. i have never heard of the other one though ...

• At June 16, 2008, Eva White wrote:

  Finding a programmer can be quite daunting for someone who has no software know how and is at the mercy of the said programmer. it is also the main reason that most bloggers are usually software guys.

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I’m probably at the point where I need to focus a bit myself, so I figured I’d revisit the idea. When you find yourself with too little time to make much progress on the projects you have, it’s time to evaluate if you want to cut some of them loose. I plan on doing this by writing down a list of all the projects I have going, and estimating how important each is to me, and how much time each takes.

Then in some way I’ll decide which ones to cut loose. Or not, maybe I’ll feel better for just having gone through the exercise.

This comes at a time when I have at least two new projects in mind, too. While I could probably keep all my current projects going indefinitely, there’s no time to add anything new.

I’ll cut this post short tonight, since I’m not entirely sure it’s making much sense (I have a head cold that kicked off today). When I’ve gone through the process of figuring out which projects to cut, I’ll do a post on how it all went.

1 Comments

• At April 24, 2008, Tom Lindstrom wrote:

  It´s quite difficult to schedule everything as there are so many things you need to do.I´m using a normal paper calender and put tasks for every day.

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It seems like this always happens in web hosting. You sign up with a host under a really great deal, and pretty soon they’re making the deal even better. But not for you, because you signed up under the old plan. That’s just the way web hosting goes.

When I see the $3.50 a month for Site5 hosting, I start to think about getting a second hosting account. They’re offering unlimited websites, so you could easily run all your sites off the one hosting account. I don’t particularly need a second account, I haven’t outgrown the one I have now, but I’m a sucker for great deals.

So I start through the order process to see more of the details. I get to the part where it talks about pricing, and I see that the $3.50 a month price is only available if you prepay for 10 years. Let’s be realistic here…10 years is practically an eternity in web hosting terms. Site5 may not still be around, or I may not still be around, or I may decide to go live on a tropical island without Internet access.

I can’t imagine any good reason for paying for 10 years of web hosting. I’ll prepay for two years to get a better monthly rate, but 10 years is just ridiculous. So I look to see what the rate is for two years, and it’s $6.95 a month. That’s still a good deal, but is double the “special” price. Special pricing is fine, but it’s a bit dishonest to make it available only for a length of time most people wouldn’t use.

I’m still extremely happy with my own Site5 hosting, and don’t have any plans to switch. But I’ll make sure to read the fine print on any web hosting offers that seem too good to be true!

2 Comments

• At March 27, 2008, On Stage Lighting wrote:

  I agree, even two years is a long time. I signed up with one web host unlimited space/bandwidth reseller account for two years to get a better deal.

  Not even a whole year in, 20 sites running and I am leaving. Usual thing - bad support, slow servers, poor attitude. Now I am not only having to migrate 20 sites from their poor servers but I find myself having to argue the toss over a refund.

  I am paying my new host a more money but I get better servers and better service - all you need from your host.

  So, my advice is:

  If you are happy with your hosting, who cares what deal they are giving other customers? I can't even think of the lost revenue and man hours my rubbish host has cost me. I hope I don't have to change host again anytime soon but I am now renting by the month.

  Best Wishes

  Rob

• At March 27, 2008, Jay wrote:

  Rob, sorry to hear you're having to migrate to a new host. I'm just grateful that Site5 is still doing a good job for me. Most people don't realize just how many websites an active Internet Marketer accumulates over time.

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I’d originally hosted The Advisory Panel on a subdomain of this blog, because it was an easy and inexpensive way to host it. I figured I’d see what happened with the forum, and move it to its own domain name later.

Well, later came, and I just recently completed the move. It was a bit of a hassle, which reminded me I should have just started with its own domain name. After all, a domain name is only $9 these days, less if you use a coupon code.

One of the hassles that cropped up was the need to copy the actual forum files from one directory on my server to another. Now, I’m technical enough that I was able to log into the shell and use a single command to copy the entire directory structure to the right place. Lacking that knowledge, though, this would have been a pain.

After the copy, various config files had to be updated with the new location. There weren’t too many of these, because most of the forum doesn’t care about the actual directory it lives in. But it’s a pain to have to go back and touch these config files a second time, when you’ve already done it once setting up the forum.

Switching over to the new domain name was a bigger pain. There are numerous settings in vbulletin that use the domain name, and I had to track down each and every one of them and change it from ap.onlineopportunity.org to advisory-panel.org. I would only know that I missed one of them when I went to the forum and, for example, didn’t see the images of smilies I should have seen when composing a post.

Oh, and a note for anyone who tries to move a forum to a different domain…clear your browser’s cache after the move. I actually saw the smilies even though they weren’t really there because of them being in my browser’s cache. It was only when I logged in from a different computer that I realized something was wrong.

I still have a mildly annoying problem that I haven’t been able to figure out yet, involving the site navigation menu. It worked fine before the move to the new domain name, and doesn’t quite work right now.

So my advice for anyone who is thinking about starting a forum is to break down and spend the $9 to give the forum its own domain name from the very start. It’s far less hassle than trying to move it later!

If you’ve tried to get to The Advisory Panel lately through a bookmark into the forum itself, you’ll have to update those bookmarks. The old main address will automatically forward you to the new address, but no deep links to the old address will work.

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In the Site Critiques section, we pick a blog each week and do some critiques of it in various areas, such as the adherence to the niche, the quality of the content, the way it’s monetized, etc. We’re just starting talking about John Chow dot com today, so head on over and chime in with your opinions.

Niche selection is ongoing in the sponsored blog. That’s a blog written by a group of member volunteers. I pay for the blog’s hosting and provide the technical support, and the volunteers share in the proceeds from the blog. This is all happening in one of the private sections of the forum, available to members only.

In the Shameless Self Promotion section, we’ve heard recently from Rosa, who won the 2007 People’s Media Award, and from Lori, who will be having a guest post published in a very high profile blog. Click through to read the details and congratulate both of them.

I’m also looking for PPC experts to run the advertising exercises. Those are the ones where members brainstorm unique ways to market a particular product, and we then run PPC campaigns to test out the ideas. Profits are shared among all the participants. If you regularly run profitable PPC campaigns, and are a mentoring sort of person, contact me for more details on getting involved.

Those are some of the highlights. Feel free to click through and read the public sections. When you register and confirm your email, you’ll get access to the private sections as well.

Click here for the Advisory Panel.

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