Top 5 Psychological Tricks that Generate Sales

Top 5 Psychological Tricks that Generate Sales

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When we say psychological tricks we’re not talking about fooling people. We’re talking about how the design of your site and the content you write can be optimized to make emotional appeals. Your visitors will be heavily influenced by the aesthetics of your site (the look) and what your site is telling them (the content). So once you’ve got someone’s attention, what are you going to ask them to do?

Here’s a basic rundown of how your site can use psychology in an optimal way:
  1. Understand emotional appeal
  2. Choose appropriate colors
  3. Choose the right font
  4. Consider contrast
  5. Use images that affect

As you’re reading through the techniques below, keep your “call to action” in perspective. Always remember what it is you want your visitors to do on your site. If you don’t know, how will they know?

Psychological Tricks or Emotional Appeals?

Designing a website may seem like a purely technical practice, but it’s not. Every decision you make on your site will affect your visitors’ emotions in significant ways. From your font selection, to your images, to the colors you select, all of your choices will make an impact.

We all make decisions based on emotion to some extent, and rationality and logic come later. Bearing that in mind, when trying to get your visitors to do something (whether it’s buy, read, click, or think) you will need to appeal to emotions.

What Do Your Colors Say About Your Brand?

Untruth: you should choose your website colors based on personal preference.
While it might seem obvious to use your favorite colors for your logo and your site’s design, this is a sub-optimal solution. It all goes back to knowing your audience and choosing what’s best for them.

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Colors communicate much more than you may think they do. Stop and think deeply about what kind of message you’re sending, and choose the appropriate color for the emotion you’re trying to convey.

What Does Your Font Say About Your Brand?

Is your font going to encourage your visitors to trust your brand? How could it? It might be hard to believe, but it’s true. Your font can make an emotional appeal for your brand. Are you elegant? Trustworthy? Dignified? Modern? Your font can communicate all of this on an emotional level.
Untruth: when selecting a font for your site, just scroll through them until you see one you like.

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While it’s tempting to pick your favorite font and move on, resist the temptation. Again, think seriously about your message and the emotions you’re trying to appeal to in your readers; then select a font based on that data.

It’s All About Contrast

Contrast in web design plays a huge role in the aesthetic pleasure of your site. Pay close attention to how the elements of your site play alongside each other.

Color Contrast

When selecting colors for your site, pay close attention to the contrast between colors. For example, if your site has a white background, a totally black font produces greater contrast that may be harder for your visitors to read. As you search around the web, notice that more and more sites employ a slighter gray, softer black. This can make reading your site more enjoyable for your visitor.

Contrast in General

Contrast doesn’t start and end with color contrast. Think about how you’re balancing the other elements of the page. Are you giving enough space for your text, images, and blank areas? Are all of these various elements balanced in an aesthetically pleasing way? Yes, white space is ok, and you mustn’t be afraid to use it strategically.

Use Images to Communicate Your Appeal

When selecting images for your site, it’s easy to just Google a pic and paste it onto your site. That ease and quickness may be great in the moment, but it will hurt your goals in the long run.

For example, if you’re running a tourism site, random images of scenery may be evocative but too generic to make a significant impact of most visitors. Perhaps more lively, dynamic images of people cycling, eating, or dancing will better communicate the kinds of activities people enjoy in the city you’re trying to promote.

It would be best to hire a photographer to take professional images for your site. If a photographer is outside your budget, consider using our BoldGrid image search. We scan through multiple databases to get you high-quality royalty-free images.

Final Thoughts

While it’s easy in the moment to design a site haphazardly, you need to think of your long term strategy and what specifically you’re asking your visitors to do on your site. Once you have this data pinned to a strategy, you can begin to use these emotional appeals to optimize that strategy.