A Complete Guide to Selecting the Best Colors for Your Website

When you decide to paint your room you basically think about making it a place to rest, decorated with beautiful colors. But after actually visiting the paint store, it can be typically intimidating. This is because, you get a wall of swatches to select from wherein each card is slightly different from the other.

Of course, whichever color you select won’t last for whole life, yet the color must be something that you would love. Some would love to select brighter and vibrant tones to splash on the walls while some would select a tone that’s slightly muted. You can have a different wall color which can be bold or devalued – it means a risk that gets a salute or money spent that goes waste.

Similar is the case when you select colors for your website. Humans have the ability to distinguish approximately 7 million different colors and hence, it could be very difficult to find the right tone for your site.

Thanks to the small button that allows you to switch between the color schemes on a website to avoid last minute running to the hardware store for primer. If you want colors to pop your walls or drive online conversions, there are some tried-and-tested notions that you should consider.

Understanding the Communication of Hues to Our Brains

Since humans developed the ability to create art and build civilizations, they symbolized each color and found the ways our brains can remember them.

The ancient Egyptians made use of mixed mineral-based pigments for creating their art with color-based meanings. As per them, they symbolized each color as below:

• Green – Symbolizes growth, abundance, and the afterlife.
• Red – Symbolizes the color of blood and fire, represented death and destructive energy.
• Gold – Symbolizes color of the gods.

According to a research, today 90% of the consumers buy products depending on their color. Can’t believe? Keep your content and product aside for a moment and look at this: 42% of online shoppers have an opinion of a website based on its design alone.

Picking good colors matters a lot, then be it on the walls of your room or the landing page for your blog or business.

Now let’s take a look at the role of colors in your website and brand identity.

Role of Colors in Your Website and Brand Identity

Everyone drinks Coca-Cola, right? What’s the first thing that comes into your mind for this brand?

Of course an ice cold bottle of Coca-Cola.

Then, your brain thinks of the iconic red coke logo.

You can imagine Coca-Cola without the red color. The red color is the vital part of Coca-Cola as its famous soda.

The decision of Coca-Cola of using red as their brand color was not accidental but has some purpose as below:

#1 The red color helps Coca-Cola to stand unique from its competitors on store shelves.

#2 The feelings or emotions attached to every color are different. After seeing the red color, your emotional responses like excitement, boldness, love, and passion get triggered. Coca-Cola wants you to associate with its soda with the same feelings.

Picking the right color for your website means you are doing more than just making it look appealing. It means you are creating a excellent brand.

Check the below facts:

• 85% of shoppers give the primary reason as color for purchasing a particular product.
• There has been an increase of 80% in brand recognition when a color is used properly. Brand recognition helps in directly linking to consumer’s confidence.

After all this, you might be thinking “Wow, color works like a magic! Why don’t more people use it and take the advantage?”

The reason is because most people don’t know how.

A Spectrum of Themes for Different Reasons: Selecting Website Colors

May you select a color for your house or your website – it’s good to ensure if the structure is correct prior to applying.

To have the support of a solid web host is similar to having technicians on call 24/7 for your production machine. This is because your web host monitors all the corners of your site and ensures that those are strong and secure as well as there isn’t any issue. In this way, you can concentrate on minor things that make your visitors comfortable.

Frustrated to select a color for your website? Simply close your eyes and imagine that you are walking through a relaxing green resort. Or search on Google for the local yoga classes to get de-stressed. What do you see?

You might have pictured a place surrounded with greenery and tranquil blues of swimming pool water or blissful, mossy greenish-grays. Here, you can relax and give your brain a peace of mind.

In a similar way you can usually trust your perception for color, if you know the one universal truth: every design tells a story. When you select a web design it reveals your visitors’ perceptions about you. So it is essential to consider the way you want to present your brand while selecting the color scheme for your website.

For example, legal or financial firms want their clients to trust them and make use of cool, stately grays and confident navy blues on their websites. Whereas food bloggers or grocery stores want their customers to get attracted to the food and so avoid the appetite-suppressing cool blues and gray. Instead they use warm and vibrant reds, oranges, and greens that stimulate the appetite.

Are you planning to give off a friendly, local farmer’s market vibe with a plenty of warm hues or something glossy like a skyscraper on Wall Street? Do you think bold, disruptive colors intentionally placed on crisp white backgrounds will showcase you as a thought leader in tech or as an innovative entrepreneur?

You might find selecting colors quite tricky but make sure you don’t over think about it.

Decided to Use a Dominant Color, Plan Your Next Move

After selecting a dominant color which reveals your website’s character, you should now make the decision on secondary color to complete your color scheme. Here are the options laid out on the color wheel:

Monochromatic: In monochromatic schemes, a single color is used and you get to explore different variants of light and saturation. Though these schemes are easy on the eyes, they come with the risk of being plain. For instance if a well-placed splash of complementary yellow or an analogous purple is used on a page flooded in shades of blue, it can appear to be complete.

 

Analogous: Colors which are next to each other on the color wheel are called as analogous colors. They usually create combinations that are gratifying. Analogous colors mix with the colors adjacent to them on the wheel ( for example – picture red, orange, and yellow hues of autumn leaves blended together on a tree) which isn’t seen in monochromatic schemes. You will often find analogous color schemes in nature and normally have a pleasant effect.

 

Complementary: The colors which are opposite each other on the color wheel are called as complementary colors. They create a high contrast, vibrant, attention-grabbing scheme when combined together. You can use them carefully to highlight details you want to stand out especially for call-to-action buttons.

 

 

Triad: The colors that are placed evenly apart on a color wheel like the points of a triangle are called as triad color schemes. A classic example of a triad scheme is use of purple, green, and orange which is best applied when one color overlooks and the other two are used as accents.

 

 

Selecting a color scheme can seem to be irresistible surely when you want to select more complex combinations such as split-complementary and tetradic schemes. Therefore, you can start with the color schemes which appeal to the eyes and also, keep it simple.

Shades and Tints to Consider for Complementary Colors

You have chosen your primary color and have a basic color scheme concept, so let’s understand and consider other factors. When you play with tints, tones, and shades, it results into fine-tune your colorful combinations.

Tint: You get a tint after adding white to any hue on the color wheel to lighten, desaturate, and reduce the color’s intensity.

 

 

 

Tone: Tones basically lie between tints and shades. A tone gets created by adding black as well as white to the original hue to make the color darker or lighter and to reduce the saturation of the original hue.

 

 

Shade: When you add black to a hue that results in a richer, darker, and more intense color, it is called a shade.

 

 

 

Remember if you use harsh color combinations those can have draining effect on the eyes. Of course a bright orange text on a bright blue background will look good, for instance. While the colors create a high contrast, they are a truthful ugly thing. When you tweak shades and tones, it balances the color values, creating a visually pleasing and easy to read and gold-on-navy scheme.

Let Your Colors Pop to Improve Conversions

As mentioned above, 90 percent of split-second purchasing is decided based on color. So, one can’t predict the key role, the hues you have selected play in getting conversions on your website.

The three main factors – reliable web hosting, social media outreach and SEO optimization, each of them is responsible to bring customers to your blog or store. But even vibrant, attractive call-to-action button or white space which is well-placed can create wonders.

You won’t see the best landing pages crowded. Instead those are direct, simple and developed with good design principles. So, use your knowledge of color theory while considering the factors and tips about the landing page:

• Is your headline unique? Choose your background colors keenly and never let your color scheme swallow your message.
• Make sure your body copy is readable: Don’t avoid using basic black on white. This is because it is the most easy-to-read color combo and also creates a clean, modest feel in almost every context.
• Make your call to action bold and alluring: If your call to action is clickable, the person who demands attention is your lead. This is the point where you’ll need to use the contrasting colors pop.

How to Select the Colors for Your Web Page?

Similar to interior design or fashion, in web design there are classic guidelines that shouldn’t go out of style. Don’t miss to check the do’s and don’ts of website design and always pick a good color for communicating with your audience.

Your color choice should reveal the message about the story that your website wants to convey. Decide whether you want to stimulate or soothe your audience. Your color choice must convey experience and cool professionalism or warmth and friendliness.

Check if your color scheme affects the navigation and usage of your site. It should help in directing your audience’s attention to the places such as your call to action badge. Also, the text should be easily readable.

See to it that your color selection is creating a rainbow-hued sensory overload effect. Rethink about your fluorescent greenish choices.

If you are doubtful, represent in simple way and keep in mind: You can always learn from you past mistakes.