colour palette

Top 10 Website Colour Selection Tips

Have you thought about how to use colour on your site?

Before you decide on the visual style for your website take some time to review how some of the most popular sites are currently using imagery and the other key visual element of colour. Big companies spend a load of cash on market research including finding out which visuals encourage site visitors to fulfil their goals. This could be to buy, join, learn or take some other action.

Colour schemes popularity can be prone to flavour-of-the-month syndrome and change according to the times but there are tried-and-true palettes that will always work. Find a few sites that have the same call to action as yours and implement similar styling without copying it exactly. Do some A/B testing by changing the scheme from time-to-time and see what works best for your site.

Here are the Top 10 reasons to think about colour on your site as outlined on Understanding Graphics.com who provide great explanations of each of the listed reasons:

  1. Speed-up visual search.
  2. Improve object recognition.
  3. Enhance meaning.
  4. Convey Structure.
  5. Establish Identity.
  6. Convey symbolism.
  7. Improve usability.
  8. Communicate mood.
  9. Show associations.
  10. Express metaphors.

Professional graphic designers don’t just pick colours randomly – there are reasons behind every style decision so study their methods and take a lead from them to use on your site.