Posted in Internet Marketing Strategy	November 13, 2006

By Peter A. Schaible, Editor-At-Large Mequoda Daily and Library

If you take a close look at the most visited sites on the Internet, you'll see an interesting phenomenon. They all seem to use the same four colors.

It's true. Many websites use the same basic color scheme with slight variations. Usually those four colors include two shades of blue, a shade of gray, and a shade of yellow or ochre.

White is the predominant background color, with a pale blue coming in second.

A few examples for your reference

• Yahoo
• Amazon
• MSN
• Wal-Mart
• PC Magazine
• AOL
• Microsoft
• Lycos
• Go
• Netscape
• Wall Street Journal
• Realtor

This is no coincidence. These sites all use the same basic color scheme because their publishers have discovered which colors work best on the Internet for attracting visitors and keeping people interested.

The late, great Mr. Louis Cheskin

One of my marketing heroes, Louis Cheskin founded the Color Research Institute. Mr. Cheskin was the packaging genius who created the Gerber baby, designed the 7-Up label, and put the spoon on Betty Crocker packages.

He also made margarine yellow—it was previously white—and the McDonald's arches golden.

Mr. Cheskin discovered that the four characteristics of colors—visibility, retention, preference, and association—are sometimes different for men and women.

For men, blue rates low in visibility and retention, but high in preference. Men generally associate blue with the words "reliable" and "intelligent".

Do you think it's any coincidence that IBM is nicknamed "Big Blue" ?

However, for women, blue also rates low in visibility and retention, as well as low in preference. Women generally associate blue with the words "depressing" and "professional."

Nevertheless, when asked, more people of both genders cite blue as their favorite color.

Mr. Cheskin was fond of saying “perception is reality” and wasn’t interested in what customers thought about the packages he created. Instead, what was important to him was how colors and packaging made them feel about the product.

Food for thought: How do the colors of your website make your customers feel about your publishing company and its products?

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