An aesthetically pleasing colour scheme can make or break your website. After all, in advertising, colour accounts for 60% of advertisement’s acceptance or rejection. Therefore, colour plays a pivotal role in determining whether or not a potential customer will choose to conduct business with your firm. A web designer needs to ensure that all of your website’s colours work in harmony, while keeping the client’s identity consistent with other marketing efforts.

Quick Rules of Thumb

– Stick to 3 to 5 colours when planning a website

– When in doubt, use white for the background colour, and black for the text colour

Using Your Company’s Logo Colours

If your company already has a logo designed by a professional – great! This is the best starting point for choosing your website’s colour combination. You may choose to use the exact colours found in your logo, or even add some complimentary colours. But, it is important not to stray too far from your logo’s colour scheme in order to keep your company’s identity consistent.

Colour Defines Mood

The colours of your website are important because they can elicit different emotions from your visitors. Colours can make us happy, excited, angry or sad. Below is a list of colours along with the corresponding moods which they evoke:

Warm Colors

Red: aggressiveness, passion, strength, vitality

Pink: femininity, innocence, softness, health

Orange: fun, cheeriness, warm exuberance

Yellow: positive thinking, sunshine, cowardice

Cool Colors

Green: tranquility, health, freshness

Blue: authority, dignity, security, faithfulness

Purple: sophistication, spirituality, costliness, royalty, mystery

Neutral Colors

Brown: utility, earthiness, woodiness, subtle richness

White: purity, truthfulness, being contemporary and refined

Gray: somberness, authority, practicality, corporate mentality

Black: seriousness, distinctiveness, boldness, being classic

Choosing a Color Scheme

Once you understand the colours and their connotations, the next step is to choose a colour scheme for your website. Below is list of different types of colour combinations:

Monochromatic colour combinations use a single color. Variations in lightness of the selected colour can be used to create the sense of different colours. Monochromatic colors go well together, producing a soothing effect, and are very easy on the eyes. The drawback however, is that, it can be difficult to highlight the most important elements on your website.

Analogous color schemes use colours that are related, but not the identical, to create visually attractive combinations. Choosing this type of colour scheme is accomplished by picking colours that are close to each other on the colour wheel. For example, a selection of blues and purples, or reds and oranges would make a good analogous combination. One colour must be picked as the dominant colour while the others are used as accents.

Complementary (or contrasting) color schemes are comprised of 2 colours that are opposite each other on the color wheel. This combination is most appealing when a warm and a cool colour are used. For example, red with green or blue work well as contrasting colours. Using one colour for your background, and its complementary color to highlight key elements will give you colour dominance and colour contrast. One word of caution: it is difficult for the human eye to focus on contrasting colours at the same time. Therefore, it is best to avoid using strong contrasts for background and text colours.

Paul Coulter owns and operates a custom web design company in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. If you would like to read more web design articles or contact Paul, visit his business’s website: Cost Effective Web Design, Windsor ON [http://www.cost-effective-design.com/services.html]

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“How can I attract thousands of visitors to my site?”, many people ask me this question. Well, driving high traffic to Website is very important, but what’s even more important, is designing a website in that way which makes them stays longer.

In this article, you’re going to learn 7 important website design tips to make your site more attractive. So not only your website will attract many people, but it will also motivate them to stay for a long time.

1. Be Aware during Selection of the colors scheme:-

If your company has a logo or preferred colors on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colors and stick with them – don’t change colors on every page. The most common color schemes include:

– Red, yellow and white

– Blue and white

– Red, grey and white

– Blue, orange and white

– Yellow, grey and white.

– Onion shade, Tan, white

If you’re not sure what color scheme to choose, surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can then model your color scheme on what already exists.

Always Select those colors which Attract the visitors, and the person revisit your site.

2. Page Backgrounds

Ensure your visitors can read the text on the background, i.e. no black writing on dark blue background or yellow on white. Means if the page background is dark always use light color for the writhing a text or if the light color is used for the page background the always use dark color for writing a text, like this color scheme for the background everything is visible to the visitor. Also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue (before being visited) and burgundy (after being visited), so if you have a dark background, ensure your links are light.

3. (Page loading) site open within a minutes

All I’ve seen for the last 10 minutes is ‘page loading’, I think something might be wrong with my browser this is probably one of the biggest gripes a site visitor has. If your page takes more than a minute to load (on dial-up) and you have anything less than the meaning of life hidden within your content – something needs to be done. The average person does not have time they just go for another site without passed his time for these type of site those take time to open. So a good website takes less time for loading a site.

4. Appropriate page Size

Web pages are measured in pixels. Pixels are the unit of measurement for the screen. A Web page can literally be any size. Standard Web pages usually fit into a few sizes:

* W × H * 600 × 800 * 640 × 480 (Dream weaver default) * 1024 × 768 * 550 × 400 (Flash default)

The default Web page sizes provided in Web friendly applications and listed earlier are a great place to start. You will probably use a smaller, custom size for pop-up windows. The Web page size you choose is up to you. Remember to use actual space for the Web page effectively so that the content is in the proper proximity to the user’s navigation patterns. Web page size affects the way users move around the Web pages and the Web portfolio site. One rule: Pick a size for all main screens and stick to it.

5. Logo

Create a simple logo to identity your website. Have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website.

6. Application of graphic designs

You must be careful in choosing for the appropriate design that will best represent your projects, and tell about your business. Create a design which coveys in a stylish way what it has to

7. Be aware about grammar and spell

Grammar is overrated [and the spill-checker too] Most web authoring and word processing software comes with a spell/grammar check utility – don’t let your hard earned money go to waste, use it. Some of the more common grammatical mistakes are misusing its, it’s, there, their, they’re, your, you’re, and no one (correct=no one). Proof reading your final product is also helpful. No one is infallible, that’s why pencils have erasers and computer programs have [ctrl+z].

Sean Mcgill,

The Author is the owner of a web site design Company, and providing affordable web site design to clients across USA and UK for sensible prices.

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