Choosing the Best Color Palette for Your Website

Do Colors Make a Difference? 

Whether you’re creating a website for a new brand or updating the color scheme of an existing one, certain colors can spark specific emotions when seen. There is a lot of psychology behind choosing the correct color palette.

You might not think that colors impact you, but you might be surprised by how choosing the right colors can affect a company’s bottom line. Many people say that color has a significant impact on their purchasing decisions. According to a Maryland University of Loyola study, brand recognition increased significantly with the usage of colors. For instance, when you think of Cadbury, you probably picture their Lavish purple packaging.

There is no absolute rule to this, so don’t interpret this to mean that purple is the one to go for. You should experiment with colors until you find one that works for you. A purple call to action won’t stand out if your site is predominantly purple.

Importance of Colors in Web Designing

Color psychology also applies to website design. The color scheme of your website can significantly affect how visitors perceive your brand. The good news is that you can take advantage of this to ensure that their first impression of your brand is favorable and memorable. It’s important to know why your website’s color scheme is so important before moving on to the process of choosing one for your site. After all, you might believe that the content is what matters most. And while that is true, it is not the only thing.

People love engaging in different content. They are drawn to new voices and enticing stuff, but you must first grab their interest. Website color palettes can be used to achieve this. When designing websites, there are many factors to consider. Although establishing a solid color scheme is a great starting point. It is obvious why color is so important in web design: when used creatively while taking the target audience’s needs and the site’s content into consideration, it can significantly impact the user experience and, ultimately, the conversion rate.

Consumers can learn a lot about the personality of your brand from color. Even though most people may not be aware that a company’s red logo is intended to evoke excitement, it can still accomplish that goal. And while every color has the potential to elicit a different emotion or response, for the vast majority of brands and websites, certain colors are preferable to others.

Some Widely Known Brand Colors

Facebook

There’s probably only one color that comes to mind when you think of this social media giant, and that color is blue! It turns out that this is the case for an interesting reason—founder Mark Zuckerberg is color blind to red and green. He once remarked, “Blue is the richest color for me; I can see all of blue.” The choice of color has had a big impact on how we view Facebook.

Blue has been a universally-loved color since the first study of colors conducted in the 1800s. More than 30% of the top 100 brands have Blue in their color palette. Many of us view it as reliable, comfortable, and calming—a place we can go to escape the stress of the outside world.

Ebay

Despite having a fairly diverse color scheme, eBay frequently uses green as a dominant color on its website. In order to encourage browsers to click “go” on their purchases, the eCommerce store uses the symbolism of the color green to represent financial wealth (or, in this case, cost savings).

Tips and Tricks to Choose the Best Color Palette for Your Website

1. Basics of Color Psychology

Color psychology plays a significant part in marketing. Here are the most crucial foundational concepts you must understand because going over all the specifics would take far too long.

Color associations have a lot of power. They begin to form in us as infants and typically last the rest of our lives. These connections are automatic and frequently unconscious. For instance, everyone picks up on the associations between the color yellow, which instantly signifies the sun, and the color green, which is highly associated with leaves.

According to a study, while Russians believed that black, purple, and yellow were the envious colors, Americans associate envy with black, green, and red.

2. The Theory of Colors

Color theory is, in a nutshell, the study of how color functions. You can learn a few straightforward ideas to improve your knowledge of colors for your website design. Understanding primary, secondary, and tertiary colors is the first step.

The primary colors are yellow, red, and blue. They are the primary source for all the other colors, hence the name.

By combining two primary colors, secondary colors are produced. For instance, green results from combining the primary colors blue and yellow.

Tertiary colors are produced by combining adjacent primary and secondary colors on the color wheel. These result in compound colors; for instance, blue-violet is created by combining the primary colors blue and violet.

Colors are often classified into “warm colors”, which include reds, oranges, and yellows, and “cool colors”, which include blues, greens, and violets.

3. Keep It Simple Yet True to Your Company’s Personality

It might seem complicated, but it shouldn’t. Keep things simple when selecting your color scheme. The most significant benefit is it helps in putting together a color scheme effortlessly. Everything will appear coordinated if there are only a few colors used. Another advantage is that viewers don’t have to exert much effort to understand what’s happening. Your users will be more puzzled if you use excessive colors.

Lastly, being true to your brand’s aesthetic is very crucial, as the colors you choose should speak to your brand’s values. For instance, going green might be a better choice if your brand focuses on health and wellness, and red might be more helpful in exciting your visitors and motivating them to act right away.

4. Play With Your Colors

Contrast is one of the most crucial components of good design you can use when creating the color scheme for your website. This is so that contrast can have an impact. Particularly, contrast can make certain page elements stand out. That’s something you should definitely think about before designing your website.

Types of Color Palettes and Their Significance

1. Monochromatic Color Palettes

If you’re someone who likes to keep things clean and simple, then this one’s for you. A monochromatic palette would give your website a more subtle and plain look, as these palettes consist of the same color in different tones and shades.

2. Analogous Color Palettes

In this era of content, everyone likes something fun yet straightforward. Analogous colors mean that the group of colors has similarities and to achieve so, three adjacent colors in the color wheel are selected. For instance, yellow, green-yellow, and green.

These palettes can offer creativity and, at the same time, can give a more to-the-point look to your website.

3. Complementary Color Palettes

A complementary color palette allows you to balance things and keep them attractive at the same time. For this palette, you can pick out any color from the color wheel and look at its opposite one. These can be a good way of attracting audiences as these colors can get immediate attention. Many companies use these color palettes for their logos, making them more captivating.

4. Triadic Color Palettes

If you like thinking out of the box and making something outstanding, you should give a try to triadic color palettes. These palettes are pretty unique as they are made from three colors at equidistant points on the color wheel. For instance, let’s consider blue, yellow, and red. This can make your website look fun and chic. Although, this would require a lot of experimentation as it may take some time to finalize the right ones for your brand.

Is It a Good Idea to Hire a Professional Web Designing Firm? 

Everyone has the availability of graphic designers. If not on-site, freelancers. So what’s the point in hiring a professional web designing firm? A professional firm can help you by getting engaged right from the start with concepts that make sense as part of the overall project scope. With their guidance and expertise, they can ensure you get a beautiful website on time and under budget. Our WLIQ visual artists hold decades of experience delivering on sophisticated client requests, which means, you can truly dream big.