Website color schemes play an important role in how users will interact with your online presence. Therefore, choosing the right color scheme for your website is crucial to your online success, as it affects moods and buying decisions. Would you like to learn how to design a website color scheme? Read on!
Are website color schemes REALLY that important?
While many of the perceptions around color schemes are rather subjective, some colors have had universal meaning for many years. Today, alternative therapists even use color treatment (chromotherapy) to balance mental, physical, emotional and spiritual energy levels within the body. You can use this sneaky trick to get more sales on your website by designing the best color scheme for your website.
According to Kissmetrics, this is how colors on your website affect conversions:
- 92.6% of users feel that visual dimensions are the number 1 influencing factor that affects buying decisions.
- It takes 90 seconds from initial viewing for people to judge a product… and up to 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.
- By changing their call-to-action buttons from green to red, one company increased conversions by 21%.
- Another company changed their CTA button from green to yellow and tweaked the copy slightly, resulting in a 6.3% increase in sales.
Research about the other effects of color on people, is simply mind-boggling.
How to Choose the Best Color Scheme for Your Website in 3 Simple Steps
Most webmasters start with a basic color from their logos or pre-designed headers as a guide. This is a winning formula for blending the site together to create a professional look. But what to do if you don’t have any visual branding on which you can base your site? Well, then the world is your oyster, as you have literally millions of options available from which you can choose.
Website Color Scheme Design Step #1: Consider your target audience
This week, I saw a bright baby-poop yellow website aimed at mothers-to-be, selling 4-d baby scans. While it is easy to see the link there that led to the choice of color scheme, it had zero appeal. Bearing your audience in mind, consider the following statistics:
- Women love blue, purple and green, but many they dislike orange, brown and grey.
- Men love blue, green and black, but many dislike brown, orange and purple.
The age of your target audience will also determine the type and brightness of colors you choose. Pastel colors are suitable if mothers with young children are your target market, but different colors will appeal to businessmen and teenagers.
Who’s your target audience? If you have not worked that out as yet, stop right now and get your FREE copy of my latest report. Find out how to Create a Web Strategy So Captivating Your Leads Can’t Turn Away!
Website Color Scheme Design Step #2: Consider color psychology
Choose your website color scheme with your service or product, and the effect you wish for your website to have on your audience, in mind.
Red: Color of action, passion, fire. A great color for calls-to-action, as it brings excitement.
Pink: Softer version of red, it is a feminine color with a calming, romantic effect.
Blue: Color of confidence, truth, professionalism, power and wealth, but also cooperation, comfort, security, loyalty and tranquility. Associated with the sky and the ocean, blue builds trust and reassurance. Known as an appetite suppressant color, it is ideal for fitness or diet sites.
Green: Color of money, prosperity, nature, growth, responsiveness, it symbolizes fertility and renewal.
Orange: Vibrant and warm, orange is associated with the earth, warmth and vibrancy, confidence, health and vitality.
Yellow: Representing light, warmth, sunshine, happiness and energy, it brings about feelings of intelligence, understanding, purity and joy.
Purple: Associated with wealth and royalty, purple is associated with creativity, sophistication, mystery and dignity.
Lavender: A softer version of purple, lavender is all about nostalgia or romance.
Brown: A warm, neutral color, brown signifies comfort, strength, wood, stability and credibility. It is often seen on legal sites.
White: A popular main color on most sites, white represents marriage and life in Western cultures and is associated with spirituality, cleanliness, freshness, perfection, peace and purity.
Grey: Signifies maturity, reliability and security.
Website Color Scheme Design Step #2: Choose 3 colors, maximum
When putting together your website color scheme, select no more than three colors. It’s important to use them in varying quantities, with a clean background. Here’s how:
Color 1: Use the lightest color for your site’s background.
Color 2: Use the second color for page elements only.
Color 3: Use the darkest color for typography and action items.
Tip: Use a color wheel or online database of most recent color combinations to design your website’s color scheme.
If I missed any tips or steps to designing the best website color scheme, please let me know in Comments, below.