Visuals do matter with website design, whether you’re building your site from scratch, or are rethinking the palette of your website, this guide will help you choose a color for your website.
After all, color is a massive aspect of branding. Ever noticed that almost every fast food restaurant uses red and yellow in their logos? That’s because together, these encourage hunger and friendliness. But picking a color palette for your website means understanding one thing:
What do you want your brand to say?
Why Website Colors are Important
Colors are integral to web design and can trigger certain feelings on sight. There is a lot behind color psychology – you might be surprised to hear that 85% of people claimed that color has a major influence on what they buy.
When some companies experimented with their button colors, they noticed a sharp uptick or decline in their conversions. For example, Beamax, a company who makes projection screens, noticed a gargantuan 53.1% increase in clicks on links that were red vs links that were blue.
And that’s not just clicks – a study run on the mental impact of colors found that colors boosted brand recognition by an average of 80%. For example, think of Coca-Cola, and you’ll likely picture their vibrant red cans.
Don’t take this to mean that red is king! If your site is mainly red, a red call to action won’t stand out. So you’ll want to create a cohesive color palette and find a combination that works for your brand. With that being said, it is important to understand the concept behind asymmetrical balance, and how to contrast pieces of your site.
How to Choose a Color Palette for Your Website
So how do you find one that works for you? You first need to get a good understanding of what you’re selling/providing. If you’re trying to achieve a more premium, high-end image, then black represents elegance, as people associate it with high quality, and intrigue.
However it really depends on what you’re selling or marketing, black may be elegant but might not express the fun and joy of orange. If you’re a tech company you might want blues in your palette as they represent security – just think about some of the big bank or tech companies like Facebook. Website colors really do say a lot about what you have to offer, so let’s take a look at each color more in-depth:
It’s an idea to think of your consumers and how your logo and marketing will affect them. Colors have environmental, psychological, and sociological representation. Whether for example, that’s nature’s emerald greens or societies money connotations. These will have subtle influences on those that visit your website or browse your social media.
Learn more about Website Color Theory and how to apply it yourself, in our separate guide to help you understand the principals behind your color palette.
