Whenever one visits a website the first thing that is noticed is the way the website looks on the whole. Generally the colors and animations attract people no matter what age. If you have a website which is rich in content but bad with the color, it loses credibility in the eyes of the website visitor. Colors can affect the user in many psychological and physiological levels. The color in the website can have a positive and negative impact on the success of the website.

The first thing one should think of when designing a website, after getting all the content that needs to be included, is the color coordination and graphics. This will not only make your website attractive, but also make it memorable. People who remember it will refer it to other people and this will increase the traffic to your website. Color has an effect on a person’s mind and while some colors are soothing some strain the eyes by being too bright. A visitor to the website makes up his mind about the website within the first 10 seconds. So the thing that will catch his eye will be the color used in the webpage.

Professional web designers know how to play with the colors to produce a pleasant browsing experience. They do not generally use more than 3 colors, since multi colored websites can take the attention away from the actual purpose and sometimes even irritate the eyes.
Different colors instill different feelings in people. Colors like blue, green and white calm people and give a sense of serenity, where as some other bright colors have the opposite effect, while pink are symbolic of softness and generosity.

Websites should choose colors depending on their target groups which can be age, sex, etc.

• For children colors like orange, yellow, violet and green can be used as bright colors attract them.

• Women find softer colors like light pink, white, lilac etc more appealing.

• Websites for men use sober colors like black, grey, brown and other dark tints.

The colors used should also consider various cultures that make use of the website. In some cultures white color stands for purity, divinity, etc. whereas in some other cultures it can be symbolic of death, mourning, etc. Beginners in web designing will need to learn about these factors before using a certain color. And making the website too bright and colorful will not fetch you any plus points but will make the website look overdone and unprofessional.

A good color combination can also be done using different shades of the same color. Especially if you are a beginner and are not very great with color combinations, using different shades of the same color will be a lot safer than trying bad combinations. Warm colors, which include colors like yellow, orange, etc. which are more exciting, should be used with warm colors, and cool colors, which include blues, greens, purples, etc. should be used with cool colors. Combining warm and cold colors will give disastrous results. It makes the website look busy, dirty and untrustworthy. Multi colored websites are found to have the lowest visitation times. Children’s webpages generally have more colors, but when the number of colors exceed 5, the website becomes hard to read as the colors keep taking ones focus.

Business on internet doesn’t involve person to person interaction, so the only way one can have an impact on the person visiting the website is by using color and being as helpful with respect to content as possible, since that is the only sales tool you have. The color of the webpage’s background, heading, text can have a psychological impact on the viewer. Red is associated with love, danger, action, adventure etc and hence will be used in websites dealing with greeting cards, weddings, etc. Green is associated with wild life, health, money, etc and will be generally used with health and nature related websites. Purple is associated with royalty and luxury and orange with fun, creativity, etc. Colors also play with our minds like, orange is said to make an expensive product feel affordable. This is why we see children’s websites usually have orange n yellow. Black is used to represent seriousness or mystery. Blues and whites are best suited for professional sites. Color in a website sets the mood be it happy, calm or that of celebration. Even though colors are important, practical thinking is also necessary as far as text is concerned, black text on white background is most readable. Text that is difficult to read will make the viewer leave the site faster as the eyes get strained. Readability of the text should be maintained at any cost. Light text on dark background and vice versa will help keep the text readable.

Web design that gets successful results will be sensitive to cultural and instinctual meanings of color with respect to the product and considers the gender and age group of the clients. The colors should not be garish or boring. The colors should give a pleasing experience to the viewer and should keep the viewer interested. Also adding texture will also give the web page a trendy look. If there is a color you want to have in your web page but if you feel it’s lighter than you would like it to be, adding textures will make it appear dark.

When the product involved is to be sold in more one country then the difference in cultures will have to be considered. Some color which would stand for something positive in one culture may represent something negative in another. So, a color that would be neutral would be safer to use in such situations.

A website is more than just a place which gives a viewer information. It makes the visitor form opinions about the company, product etc. Colors have the ability to make one feel happy, sad, uncomfortable, nervous, trusting and a lot more. And if the color is not given enough thought, it may put across a wrong image about the company.