Colors are all around us. They can inspire us, sooth us, motivate us, cause us to feel anger. Along with how colors can make us feel, they can even be healing (chakra colors). In fact, colors are often viewed as non-verbal communication. As writers, whether an author or freelance writer, you need to know how to take advantage of colors to promote you, your books, and your services. You need to know which colors will evoke the right reader, visitor response. According to Psychology.About.com , colors are “a powerful communication tool and can be used to signal action, influence mood, and cause physiological reactions.” So, it’s easy to see that colors are a critical element to your author website and branding (it's the same for freelance writers). While it may not influence your search engine optimization, it will have a direct influence on those who visit your site and see your posts on social media. But how do you take advantage of this information? Put this knowledge into action. The first thing to do is take into account the purpose of your website. • Is it an action gaming site? • Is it a food site? • Is it a health site? • It it a writing site? • A children’s writing site? • Is it a business site offering products – if so what kind of products? • Do you offer services - if so what kind of services? • Do you want to evoke action? • Do you want to evoke trust? • Do you want to evoke relaxation and calm? You get the idea. You need to know exactly what the purpose of your site is before you decide on colors. Another factor to take into account is ‘color’ visibility. Similar to fonts, computers may not display (read) the colors you’re using as they appear on your website. Be sure to use colors that are web safe. Sites like Techbom.com offer a ‘fixed’ color palette that you can browse through. What colors should you use? Because of the importance of colors in your website design and branding, it’s essential to know what colors cause what reactions. Below are five basic colors and how they can make a visitor to your site feel. -Red is an action color, a color of passion. It can motivate you to take action. -Yellow evokes feelings of lightness and cheer. It’s an uplifting color. -Orange is another uplifting color. It evokes warmth and mental energy. -Green is soothing color that evokes a feeling of balance. -Blue evokes feelings of trust and loyalty. Take the time to do some ‘color’ research. It will help you decide which colors will work best for your site. Be color careful. While colors are essential to your author platform, it’s important to keep in mind that some colors have positive and negative feelings. Take the color green, which I happen to love. It evokes feelings of relaxation, harmony, balance, and rebirth (think trees and grass in the spring). But on the flip side, it’s associated with envy and jealousy. There’s ‘green with envy, and even Shakespeare described envy as “the ‘green-eyed monster’ (from Othello). This is something to keep in mind when deciding on your color scheme. My website and branding color scheme. When I wrote about marketing, my branding colors were blue and grey. The blue works well conveying trust and loyalty, but grey is an unemotional color. Although, it does evoke a sense of stability. Then I switched to writing for children. And of course, I needed a different color scheme. I did my research and decided on an orange scheme for my website. It’s warm and friendly, just what a children’s writing site should want to convey. Where I have deviated is with my social media posts. I use all different colors for the images I create for my blog posts and my writing services posts. The reasons I did this is because I didn’t want all the images to my posts to look alike. I wanted each post to stand out, to grab the users’ attention. I did, though, stay consistent with the orange scheme with my nonfiction book, How to Write a Children’s Fiction Book. And I will stick to that color scheme for my future nonfiction books. What’s your branding color scheme and why? Reference: https://www.verywellmind.com/color-psychology-2795824
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Karen Cioffi is a children's ghostwriter and former online author platform instructor with WOW! Women on Writing. She is also the owner and editor of Writers on the Move. Find out how she can help you boost your platform.
