Color can play an important role in communicating your message online. Color choices can inspire, make an impression, and persuade your prospect to buy from you. Your color choices alone are sending a specific message to your viewers.

Using too many colors or the wrong combination of colors on your Web site could alienate or turn off customers completely. You should only choose three or four colors (or shades of those colors) for your Web site.

Color and the power of colors is often the last thing on the minds of Web site designers. We've all been subjected to Web sites with unpleasant color combinations. Yes take for example, their Web sites with white text on a yellow background, which is hardly visible. You want people to view your Web site with ease.

That is why it's important to decide ahead of time which colors you're going to use, and stick to it. Complementary colors are opposite each other on a color wheel. Warm colors are often said to be hues from red through yellow, browns and tans included; cool colors are often said to be the hues from blue green through blue violet, most grays included. Different colors and color schemes evoke different feeling.

Understanding the power of color will help you to understand how color will work on your Web site. Learning the color wheel allows you to see grouping of colors that are harmonious together and other colors that might not work together or clash.

The impact of color in Web design is always affected by the context. For example, the color red can be a color of danger, so if you use red on a warning sign. It will attract attention or caution. However, if you use red hearts on your Web site it can represent love, and friendship.

Red is also a strong symbolism of life. In decorating, red is sometimes used as an accent color to attract attention. The color red is one of the most stimulating attention grabber, and emotionally intense color on the color wheel.

As you can see color can mean different things. Depending on its intensity, one color can give very different emotions. The colors that you use should be well matched with your Web site context. Color harmony is something that is relaxing and pleasing to the eyes; it engages the visual experience in your Web site, it creates an inner sense of stability. Once you understand colors and their feelings, you're ready to begin choosing a color scheme for your Web site.

Colors are generally interpreted in one of three modes RGB (Red Green Blue), CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black) and HSV (Hue Saturation Value). Each color mode is used in an unambiguous manner but for HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), you should always use the RGB mode. Web browsers only share 216 common web safe colors so you should always stay within the 216-color palette.

Light backgrounds should have dark text and dark backgrounds should have light text. Be sure that your text is readable if you are using a background color or image. Be careful when choosing your colors, not all computers see the same color hues.

1. Primary color: This is the main color of the page. It will occupy most of the area and set the tone for the design as a whole.

2. Secondary color: This is the second color on the page and it's usually there to "back up" the primary color. Usually these colors are close to the primary color.

3. Highlight color: This emphasizes certain parts of the page. It's usually a color, which contrasts more with the primary and secondary colors, and should be used with moderation.

Remember to rethink your color choices; your goal should be to increase your targeted traffic to your site. Start by doing some brainstorming, color is one of the most important elements of your Web site and can play an important role in communicating your online message.

By Althea Murray