You might have noticed in your journey on the web that some organisations websites look so professional, while others come off very amateurish. These organisations might even have similar looking websites. So how can two organisations with similar, professional concepts be so different?

Choosing the right colour palette has a lot to do with it. Your choice in colour palette can play a vital role in the success of your website, saving your website from appearing amateurish and possibly even hard to read.

So what makes for a great colour palette?

Limit your palette

Use only a few colours! You might use colours to emphasize headings, links, graphical elements and other key information. Remember, colour is a great tool to emphasize important aspects of your website.

Your website background image, which holds no real value as a source of information on your products, does not need to be vibrant and full of colour. It will only distract your visitor from the information you are presenting. Try instead; picking a subtle colour which complements your website content and helps to highlight the important part of your website (which is of course, your products!)

The right colours

Colours are emotive and your visitors will be able to feel and connect with your brand, if you choose the right colours. Using dark colours might make it difficult for your visitors to make that connection. On the other hand, your visitor demographic might be right into that sort of thing – so the right colour is a choice you make based on who you want to reach and connect with.

Be consistent

Consistency is important so that your visitor does not become confused with your website, and ultimately close it. For example, if you decide the hyperlinks on your website will be orange, they should remain orange on all pages.

All your other branding material should also follow this consistency. Colour defines your brand. In the eyes of your customer, if you can’t keep the colour palette for your brand consistent, will you be consistent for them? Colour also helps your customer identify your brand. If the PlanetDomain logo suddenly turned green, would that confuse our identity?

So how do you choose a great colour palette?

Ultimately the task of choosing a great colour palette is the role of a professional web designer.

If you would like to give choosing your own colour palette a shot, you can also try Pictaculous (a colour palette generator). If you already have a company logo you can upload it and Pictaculous will tell you what colour palette goes with it.