How To Choose Your Website Colours
By Jason OConnor

Colour is often overlooked in the business of optimizing websites for better returns on investments. Website sales can be greatly affected by simply changing its colours. Ever come across a website that uses some funky combination of print and background colours? If you ever want to experience an eye-twisting headache, try reading yellow print on a blue background. The reason you see black type on a white background so much is that it is the best colour combination for reading, both on and offline.

Since it is even harder to read text on a monitor than it is on paper, we must all be especially careful with the colors we choose for our websites, or suffer less-than-optimal site traffïc and repeat visitors.

Colour choice should also be dictated by other, less obvious goals, when designing or re-vamping a website. It's important to realize that different colours invoke different emotions, are associated with specific concepts and say different things in each society. For instance, green often times is associated with freshness or monëy, which is fairly obvious if you think about it.

But every colour does this, and some of the emotions and concepts are more subtle. For example, white means pure, easy, or goodness and purple can be associated with royalty or sophistication. What's more, each colour carries with it both positive and negative ideas. The emotions and concepts that you associate with specific colours may differ from other people's associations, but there are themes that run throughout each colour. Here are some:

Red:
Positive: Sense of power, strength, action, passion, sexuality
Negative: Anger, forcefulness, impulsiveness, impatience, intimidation, conquest, violence and revenge

Yellow:
Positive: Caution, brightness, intelligence, joy, organization, Spring time
Negative: Criticism, laziness, or cynicism

Blue:
Positive: Tranquility, love, acceptance, patience, understanding, cooperation, comfort, loyalty and security
Negative: Fear, coldness, passivity and depression

Orange:
Positive: Steadfastness, courage, confidence, friendliness, and cheerfulness, warmth, excitement and energy
Negative: Ignorance, inferiority, sluggishness and superiority

Purple:
Positive: Royalty, sophistication, religion
Negative: Bruised or foreboding

Green:
Positive: Money, health, food, nature, hope, growth, freshness, soothing, sharing, and responsiveness
Negative: Envy, greed, constriction, guilt, jealousy and disorder

Black:
Positive: Dramatic, classy, committed, serious
Negative: Evil, death, ignorance, coldness

White:
Positive: Pure, fresh, easy, cleanliness or goodness
Negative: Blind, winter, cold, distant

A major goal of marketers is to invoke emotion in their audience. We know that if we can cause some kind of an emotional reaction in the people we are marketing to and communicating with, we have a better chance of compelling them to buy from us. The battle between logic and emotion that rages in each of is usually won by emotion most of the time. By choosing the colours of our websites and online media with deliberate care, we are purposefully trying to invoke a specific emotional response that will increase sales. So pick your colours carefully.

As a general rule of thumb, when Webwerkx designs websites, one primary colour and one secondary or complimentary colour will be chosen. These colours are based on the specific audience and market of our client and the messages the client wants to communicate to the rest of the world. If more than two or three colours are used, things tend to look a little messy, and the power of any one color is diluted too much, so we most often stick with two colours.

When I am not sure exactly which colours or combinations to use, I often start trying different things, then take a step back and ask myself what my chosen colours are conveying to me. After designing many websites over the years I have realized that going with my gut has often worked when I'm in doubt. You would be surprised at how creative and accurate your intuition can be.

However, if the client already has an established brand, we will always make sure to match the colours of the website with the original colours of the company. It is not wise to have print collateral material one colour and the website a totally unrelated colour. All marketing channels need to remain consistent, with one face only.

Since website visitors all have different platforms, different monitors, and different settings for their screen resolutions, the colours you choose for your website may not always be rendered the exact same way on your site visitors' monitors. That's why there are "Web Safe" colours that have a much higher likelihood of looking the exact same regardless of the user's computer, monitor or settings. Many graphics programs, including Adobe Photoshop, have a feature that allows you to choose "Web Safe" colours only.

Keep in mind however, that the sophistication of technology today allows for Web designers to be able to stray from the "Web Safe" colours more and more. So don't be overly concerned if you choose to use "un-safe' Web colours, chances are that most of your audience has the computers necessary to view your site the exact way you intended.

Whether you are designing sites for clients or designing your own business website, your colour choice is vital. Be sure to try different colours, different shades, and different combinations before you decide. It's a lot of fun playing with colours but every choice you make comes with a set of pre-defined emotional meanings and emotions, so choose with deliberate care.