Feng Shui Your Business Website in 7 Easy Steps

by Wayne Ford

Published on this site: February 10th, 2004

Have you had the experience of a jarring feeling the minute certain websites download onto your screen? Too bright, too cluttered, too many links, clashing colors or dark brooding colors? If you want your own website to impact your visitors in a pleasant and well-balanced way, then you should explore Feng Shui. Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese art that provides simple architectural guidelines to design and arrange objects or structures in a harmonious way in a home or a
business environment. Feng Shui principles help to maximize the sense of well being of people who use these spaces. In recent times Feng Shui has found its way into Internet design. The Internet is also a space to begin with and a space through which business is generated.

The philosophy of Feng Shui is built around the concept of Chi, which means ‘vital energy’ or ‘life force’. The Feng Shui principles of harmony create positive flows of Chi in living spaces. Most Chinese businesses apply Feng Shui principles when they design their premises and in the United States businesses have also woken up to the positive effects of chi in the work place. And now, it’s the turn of the online space where the concept is still very new.

Feng Shui for website design:

Many of the principles in Feng Shui can have a positive impact on your online business. The choice of colors and shapes, placement of lines and content are some of the main design elements of Feng Shui for websites.

7 easy steps:

1. Choose colors and shapes that complement your area of business
   
   Colors and shapes in Feng Shui represent five elements - earth, water, fire, wood and metal.
   
   
   1. Earth is associated with yellow and square/rectangular shapes. The element earth represents reliability. It can be a good choice for a website. You do find smatterings of yellow at prominent sites like amazon.com and aol.com.
      
      
   2. Though black and deep dark colors represents water and are often used in physical spaces to bring about relaxation by placing fountains, mirrors and reflective glass surfaces, you may not get a similar effect online. Dark colors may not have a tranquil or relaxing impact especially if a lot of it is used on a web page. However, shades of medium-dark blue are widely seen on thousands of websites.
      
      
   3. Red is naturally associated with fire. The color red creates enthusiasm and is a good color for websites to incorporate without going overboard with it, because too much fire could lead to impatience in visitors. Triangular shapes represent fire. Purple and deep shades of orange are
      also colors of the element fire.
      
      
   4. Green which is associated with the element wood is a safe and optimistic color since it represents a lot of positives that are relevant for websites like trust, openness and flexibility. Wood is represented by plants and plants are of course relevant to offline spaces.
      
      
   5. Metal stands for circular, oval or semi-circular arched shapes. The colors that represent metal are white and pastels. Metal is associated with intensity, clarity and perseverance. On the flip side, too much metal is likely to lead to procrastination -The use of too much metal (too much pastel or too many circular shapes) on your website may
      influence customers to put off a decision to buy.
   
   
2. Reduce the lines and dividers on your website.
   
   Do you have too many lines and dividers on your site? If there are too many lines that horizontally and vertically divide a web page to cram in a variety of information, this type of placement could serve as blocks for the positive
   flow of chi and this means the visitor to the site may feel kind of out-of-sorts with the various compartments of information that he or she has to sift through.
   
   
3. Avoid large empty spaces on your web pages.
   
   In any room a long length of wall that is dormant and unused is filled up with potted plants or some decorative object against the wall by those who practice Feng Shui. If you have considerable unused space on your website, a relevant visual or graphic can break the monotony and improve positive chi on the page.
   
   Google used to have a lot of wasted space along the right hand side in their search results. Their business idea to have text ads relevant to the search topic placed in that area is supposed to be quite a success with advertisers.
   
   
4. Avoid clutter, it leads to negative energy.
   
   Clutter on a web page could drive away the positive chi. Not just too many lines and information, but also too many links, too much copy and too many banners can add to the clutter on a page.
   
   
5. Explore protective symbols with a Feng Shui consultant.
   
   The Pa Kua is a symbol in Feng Shui that has the power to deflect ‘secret poison arrows’. A poison arrow is negative energy. Also known as Sha Chi, it is likened to a sudden landslide, hurricane or flash flood that is unpredictable and dangerous. The Pa Kua symbol is an eight-sided figure believed to project a protective influence against poison arrows. A Pa Kua mirror is generally placed at the main door of a home to deflect negative energy. Several business websites are targeted by malicious people who send out a virus with the intent of crippling their servers. Microsoft and software group SCO have been recently targeted by a virus which succeeded in crashing the SCO website.
   
   While it is tempting to place the Pa Kua symbol on your website to ward off any negatives in your business, it is generally not advisable without consulting an expert.
   
   
6. Ensure that your site is easy to navigate.
   
   If the separating walls in an office environment are too many, this affects the sequence of movement for employees and it also apparently makes the area look smaller than it actually is. Ease of movement creates positive chi and this applies online too.
   
   Positive chi is created when visitors are able to find the information they are looking for easily and are able to move effortlessly across the various pages on your web site.
   
   
7. Use Feng Shui with caution and wisely: Many symbols and placements in Feng Shui can create a negative effect if used incorrectly.
   
   While it is good to read and understand Feng Shui guidelines, before you actually incorporate these principles onto your website it is a good idea to consult a practitioner or do more research. Wrong placements could lead to negative chi and the customer experience on your website could be considerably less satisfactory. You can revitalize your business website through Feng Shui.

Positive chi could drive traffic and increase the frequency of customers returning to your site. More traffic and repeat visits also means the potential for more sales. With the right help you can use Feng Shui to revitalize your website and improve the customer experience on your site through positive energy and harmony. Try it, the results may surprise you.

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