Choosing a Colour Scheme for your Business Website

Many millions are spent on designing business websites every year, and the reason is very simple: the visual impact of your website is often the first thing your potential customer takes in, and you need to make the right first impression if you hope to convert visitors. Taking time to get this right is very important to your business's success and it can seem like an overwhelming and daunting process. However by following a few steps you can help narrow down your choice and find the design specifications right for you and your business.

Keep It Simple

In the age of powerful and cheap computer graphics software, it's easy to go overboard with the millions of colours available to the designer. Good graphic design relies on creating a pleasing contrast between colours and shapes, and too many colours can distract from the central message you want to convey. A standard rule of thumb is to choose a complementary palette of only three or four colours, ensuring that nothing gets too lurid and unpleasant to look at. Designers will often choose colours that compliment each other; those which are opposite each other on the colour wheel, or colours that are analogue to each other; sit side by side on the colour wheel.

Choosing Your Palette

Branding is an essential part of web design, and the colour scheme you choose has more effect on this than you may realise. You should ask yourself what your website is trying to achieve, who it is aiming to appeal to, and what range of colours are likely to help most in conveying the correct impression. There are numerous studies which have been conducted about consumers' response to and thoughts on colours, so it is crucial you do some research before designing, or asking someone else to design. You may also want to consider cultural differences and the market you are selling to as colours can represent different things to different cultures.

It is also often the case that different industries will have a certain look or colour palette they will stick to. For example, an insurance company will want to instil confidence, and so a sober and reliable scheme of cooler colours like greens and blues will be appropriate. Sites that are about fun or fashion will probably benefit from a louder, more aggressive colour scheme of reds, oranges or purples. Sites dealing with home and family issues often benefit from calming pastel shades - the list goes on, and it's worth trying out several colour schemes with test visitors to see which is the most effective and pleasing. 

How to Avoid Colour Clashes

As well as choosing a limited range of colours, you need to make sure they all work together without causing potential migraines in your site visitors. Fortunately, this is a very well researched subject, and there are plenty of pre-developed colour palettes available online, ready to plug into your graphic design software (or alternatively, to pass on to your web development company). Some standard ranges of colours have been proven over time to work well together, so keep your eyes open for a scheme you see that seems like it would be effective for your business, and try visiting one of the many colour palette collection sites and looking for existing palettes that could be put to a similar use. There is even software available that can take a pleasing photograph and analyse the colours used to provide a palette that can be adapted to your web design efforts which can be a useful way to create a potential colour scheme.

Steal Ideas From Competitors and Pinterest

Another way to get inspiration for your colour-scheme is to analyse and steal good ideas from your competitors. We have already mentioned how different industries will largely have a 'norm' and it may work to your advantage to create similar palette to instil a sense of familiarity and trust with potential customers. If you are thinking of doing this however, you must make sure to not directly copy as you will want to create your own brand identity.

Pinterest can also offer another great source for finding colour schemes, logo ideas and website designs - a simple search brings up numerous results. If you are going to employ a graphic designer to create a logo then bringing some visual representations of your ideas can be very helpful and using Pinterest provides a free and easy way to do this.

Still Feeling Overwhelmed? Kommand Website Builder Can Help

However you go about choosing a suitable colour palette for your business, always bear in mind the importance of the first impression, and take notice of the designs we see all around us which have had vast amounts of testing done on them - there's plenty to learn that you can apply to your own business web site, however big or small.

If you are still finding the process overwhleming, or lack the time or resources to research colour schemes, then an alternative option may be to use a website builder which includes pre-made themes to pick from.

With Kommand website builder, business owners can easily create their own websites without having any programming knowledge or graphic design experience. Better still all of our themes are optimised for mobile an important factor in today's online market and prices start from as little as £9 per month. To find out more visit our tour page.

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