How to Choose the Right Colors for Your Website

Picking website colors sounds easy until you actually have to commit. One minute you’re feeling confident, the next you’re staring at five nearly identical blues wondering why they all look different depending on the screen. If that’s where you are, you’re in good company.

Color choice is one of the most common things that slows down a web design project, and  is also one of the easiest places to accidentally make a site feel less trustworthy without realizing it.

The trick is to stop thinking of colors as decoration and start thinking of them as a system. Your colors guide attention. They set the mood. They help visitors decide, almost instantly, whether your business feels calm, premium, friendly, modern, bold, or a little all over the place. And since most people are scanning before they start reading, your color choices are doing a lot of heavy lifting in those first few seconds.

So where do you start. Not with a random palette generator, and not with what you personally like best on a Tuesday afternoon. Start with the feeling you want a customer to have when they land on your site. Imagine they just clicked from Google, or they came from a friend’s referral text, and now they’re on your homepage. What do you want their first thought to be. This looks professional. This feels welcoming. This feels like the right fit. That’s your target.

Once you know the feeling, narrow the job down. Most websites work best with a small set of core colors. Think one main brand color, one supporting color, and one accent color reserved for actions like buttons and important links. Then you build the rest with neutrals like white, soft gray, and deep charcoal. If you try to use six loud colors, you end up with a site where nothing stands out. When everything is trying to be the star, people don’t know where to look.

Here’s a simple way to choose that main brand color. Look at your business category and how customers usually feel when they need you. If they are stressed, like when something’s broken or time sensitive, calmer tones often help. If they are excited and browsing, brighter accents can fit. If you’re asking someone to trust you with a big decision, steady, confident colors tend to perform well. This isn’t magic, just human behavior. Colors create a vibe, and people respond to it whether they can explain it or not.

Now let’s talk about the part most people overlook, readability. A palette can be beautiful and still fail if the text is hard to read. Your website isn’t a poster on the wall, it’s a tool people use. If they have to squint, zoom, or guess what a button says, you lose leads. Keep body text high contrast against the background. Dark text on a light background is still the easiest for most visitors. If you love a darker look, you can absolutely do it, but you need to keep the contrast strong so the page feels crisp, not muddy.

This is also where accessibility comes in. Accessibility is not a buzzword, it’s simply making sure more people can use your site comfortably. Some visitors have color vision differences. Some are on a phone outside. Some are older. Some have their screen brightness turned down. When your contrast is strong and your important actions don’t rely on color alone, you make the site better for everyone. As a bonus, a site that is easy to read and easy to use tends to perform better overall, because visitors stick around instead of bouncing.

Your accent color deserves special attention because it’s where conversions live. The accent color is what makes a button look clickable. It should stand out from the background and from your main brand color, but still feel like it belongs. If your site is mostly cool tones, a warmer accent can pop nicely. If your site is warm and earthy, a cooler accent can bring balance. The key is consistency. Every primary button should look the same across the site. If one button is blue and another is green and another is orange, your visitor has to stop and think. And if they have to stop and think, they might just stop.

Here is a quick gut check I use that sounds silly but works. Step back and blur your eyes a little. What stands out first. Ideally it’s your main headline and your main button. If your eyes jump to random icons, background shapes, or three different callouts fighting for attention, your color system isn’t doing its job yet. Good color choices create a clear path, almost like you’re gently guiding someone through the page without saying a word.

Another smart way to choose colors is to let your content lead. If your website uses a lot of photos, your palette should support those images, not compete with them. A common mistake is choosing a strong background color and then layering photos on top that clash. It can make a site feel chaotic even if every individual piece looks fine on its own. When in doubt, keep backgrounds neutral and use your brand colors in the header, buttons, highlights, and small details. That keeps the page feeling open and makes your images shine.

Also think about where else your colors show up. Your website should match your logo, your social graphics, your email templates, and even the style of your documents if you send proposals or invoices. When the same core colors appear everywhere, your brand feels more established. When the website looks like one business but your social posts look like another, it creates a tiny moment of doubt. People might not say it out loud, but they feel it.

If you’re stuck between two palettes, you don’t have to guess forever. Pick one, apply it consistently, and look at real behavior. Are people clicking the main button more often. Are they scrolling further. Are they reaching the contact page. Even simple tracking can tell you if a change helped or hurt. Most business owners are surprised by what actually moves the needle. Sometimes the difference isn’t the shade itself, but the consistency. A slightly less exciting palette applied cleanly almost always beats a flashy palette used randomly.

One more thing that matters a lot is what your colors say about price and positioning. If you offer premium services, your colors should feel refined and intentional. If you are a friendly neighborhood business, your colors should feel approachable and clear. You can absolutely be playful, but it should look like you meant to be playful, not like you couldn’t decide. The goal is trust. Your colors should make it easier for the right customer to think, yes, this is the kind of business I want to work with.

When your color system is solid, everything else gets easier. Your buttons stand out. Your pages feel cleaner. Your content feels more readable. Your brand feels more consistent. And most importantly, your visitors don’t have to work to understand what to do next. They just do it.

If you’re having trouble choosing a palette and want us to take over, call 854-832-1117 or visit Lcnetworkconsulting.com.

‍