Though I tell my students to choose easy reading color schemes when they create their first website, many insist on using colors that hurt the eyes.

Not that I don’t understand what they think they are accomplishing.

“I want to grab a visitors’ attention when they arrive,” or “I want my site to be different from all the others,” they tell me, when they ask my opinion. Most of them are in their late teens or early twenties and must think they are creating a Goth forum, rather than an affiliate website that should be targeting people with expendable income.

I’ve seen some wild color combinations. Black backgrounds with yellow text, the brightest reds with the brightest greens, blue and black, and the list goes on. Combinations that don’t keep anyone over the age of 30 on their site longer than a few seconds. Even those over 21, who are looking for a website that will direct them to a product they want to spend their money on won’t stay longer than a minute, if that.

The fact is, even if you are selling the latest video games, whose users are the teenagers that can actually view a site with bright colors, or a loud color scheme, it isn’t the 10 – 18 year olds who are going to whip out a credit card and make the purchase. What they do is tell their parents that they want a particular game. The parents are the ones who make the purchase and if they find your site visually painful, they will look for another website.

By your late twenties, your eyes are changing. Never mind the science. Our brains simply don’t like to work at trying to read bright lettering on dark backgrounds, or viewing colors in neon for any length of time. That’s why books are printed with black text on a slightly off-white paper (it reflects less light than bright white paper). Nobody has improved on that combination since literature first arrived.

While some color can be used in a background, it should be discreet and always a light pastel, or very light earth tone.

Keep in mind that most buyers who have money are older people who don’t like eye strain. A website isn’t successful because of its’ color choices of bright, shocking combinations. They are successful because of the content, information, and ability to make a visitor into a buyer.

If you want to be unique, keep it in the logo of your website, if it doesn’t distract the reader from your articles. You aren’t posting a warning sign on the highway. You are creating a user friendly website.

Matthew A. Dees, a successful webmaster and affiliate marketer, teaches website creation in NE Pennsylvania. His download program, for those outside PA is available at HomeIncome30.com, where you will receive a FREE Affiliate Marketing ebook. Matthew’s forum, HomeIncomeForum.com, is open for all who wish to honestly discuss any aspect of website creation and affiliate marketing.