It makes sense to choose your website colour palette to resonate with your audience. Brands exist because marketers want to connect with us emotionally and emotion-based decisions lead to more conversions or sales.
A brand isn’t a design principle, but it will help guide the design process. Make your brand stand out using the right tools for design. Website colour is a key component of your brand.
What is my brand?
Logos, fonts and colours are extremely powerful tools used to convey a consistent message to your readers, prospects and customers. Your brand is essentially the feeling they experience when they visit your website or business. Colours are a critical key in your success formula.
When you get it right – your message is amplified by the colours, fonts, and images you use in all your communication. Readers want to share it with others. Additionally, your promise of value creates trust so they feel safe to buy from you or join your community.
Colour is a subliminal branding element and powerful force in all marketing online or offline.
Therefore, it’s essential to create your colour palette with care because trusting, engaged leads, prospects, and customers mean more sales. Design related decisions for all your marketing materials become easy when you have a pre-selected colour palette.
On the other hand it’s easy to fall into the trap of using different colours for every project or marketing piece. Your colour palette could easily make the difference between attracting or repelling prospects. Do your homework diligently so you can reap the rewards.
Generally, the shades on the warmer side of the spectrum tend to inspire boldness and energy, while the cool colours are calming. So when it comes to branding and websites the psychology of colour is particularly relevant. The right hue can mean brand recognition for your products and services and can alter the way consumers feel and react.
How do I choose my brand colours?
Effective websites optimized for conversion all have this one thing in common. They understand the emotional triggers of colour specific to their brand and target audience . They consistently use active and passive colours to engage their readers or buyers.
Your design colour is the main colour you use on your website. Your action colour is an opposite or contrasting colour to make your call to actions “pop” on the page. Use it for Call to Action buttons or content boxes.
I have outlined a simple process below to follow to save you hours of research time and help you avoid the usual information overload on the web. It will fast track your colour selection. Have fun and accept that you’ll probably tweak your colours several times as you develop your website.
Connect to emotional triggers
Pick the emotion you want your target audience “character” to feel when they see your content. Then pick a colour to expresses that emotion. This infographic serves as as a general guide to get the creative juices flowing for your colour palette. Read more about the psychology of colour here: The Psychology of Color
Once you know what emotion you want to convey, decide whether you’ll build your brand with that one colour or blend it with others.
One of the easiest ways to choose a more complete color palette is to search for proven examples using the one color you feel will resonate with your audience most.
Canva offers an online source of one hundred color palettes derived from photographs. This is one of the best starting points for choosing your website palette. I suggest you browse through these, and select 3 or 4 palettes that include the color you feel will resonate with your audience. It should include a secondary color that will be used for emphasis and the calls for action on your website.
Here is one example:
We tend to think of black and white as being the most sophisticated colors. But check out how this example by Julian Damy manages to achieve an elegant look by simply using deep blue tones and subtle gold highlights. Another palette inspired by art history, this collection of colors is timeless and beautiful.
Now it’s your turn. Pick a palette number that resonates with your audience and also suits your personal tastes and start creating.
Congratulations!
You now have your website brand colours!
The colours you chose for your website will create a specific impression or mood. If you get it right, for your niche, your readers will know your site is trustworthy and you are an authority in your market. If you get it wrong it can result in higher bounce rates because the impression created is one of inexperience, unprofessionalism or untrustworthiness.
So, get it done now and have fun building your brand for your online success.
Create your website colour palette
Choosing colours that work well together is a pure science not guesswork. Know the feelings colours evoke so you can choose pure colours, tints and shades that resonate with your audience.
Choose hues of persuasion to engage your target audience. Use the Adobe colour wheel to get started – then complete the exercise above. When you pick the right palette you’ll likely increase conversion rates.
Pick contrasting colours for you CTA’s to grab attention and increase click rates with your audience. Use your palette consistently for all your online and offline marketing materials to build brand recognition faster.
Colour has always been an important part of the human experience and can have deep subliminal meanings known to trigger mood shifts and the way prospects feel about your business.
Colour has the potential to increase brand recognition up to 80%. Create a colour palette to make your identity stand out so it’s easily recognized and others want to recommend it to their peers and friends
Yes, it will take some time to create a colour palette. It’s always worth the energy invested to be able to maintain trust with brand consistency in all your materials.
If you want to learn more about the design potential with a more specific colour palette for your website, contact me for the details >>