Color is often overlooked in the business of optimizing websites for better returns on investments. Website sales can be greatly affected by simply changing its colors. Ever come across a website that uses some funky combination of print and background colors? If you ever want to experience an eye-twisting headache, try reading yellow print on a blue background. The reason you see black type on a white background so much is that it is the best color combination for reading, both on and offline.
And since it is even harder to read text on a monitor than it is on paper, we must all be especially careful with the colors we choose for our websites, or suffer less-than-optimal site traffic and repeat visitors.
Color choice should also be dictated by other, less obvious goals, when designing or re-vamping a website. It’s important to realize that different colors invoke different emotions, are associated with specific concepts and say different things in each society. For instance, green often times is associated with freshness or money, which is fairly obvious if you think about it. But every color does this, and some of the emotions and concepts are more...