Choosing a website colour scheme: mistakes to avoid

Key takeaways

A good website colour scheme for a business uses dark neutral text on a light background, one accent colour reserved for buttons and links, and one or two supporting brand colours. The common mistakes are using too many colours, using the accent everywhere, choosing pale shades that fail contrast and relying on colour alone to show meaning.

• Use one accent colour, kept for the main buttons and links.
• Keep body text dark: at least 4.5:1 contrast with the background.
• Never use colour alone to show errors, links or required fields.
• Three main colours plus neutrals is enough for most sites.

What does a website colour scheme need to do?

A website colour scheme has three jobs: make text easy to read, show visitors what is clickable and what matters most, and express the brand. Most colour mistakes come from putting the third job first. Brand colours can still lead, but readability and clear emphasis must not be sacrificed for them.

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Mistake 1: too many colours

Using five or six strong colours across a page makes everything compete and nothing stand out. A practical rule of thumb is three main colours (a neutral for text and backgrounds, a primary brand colour and one accent) plus tints of the neutral. Adding colour should be a deliberate choice to signal something.

Mistake 2: the accent colour everywhere

If headings, icons, borders and backgrounds all use the same bright accent as the main button, the button no longer stands out. Reserve the accent for the actions you want visitors to take. Everything else can use the neutral or the primary colour.

• Button design: why visitors miss your website buttons

Mistake 3: pale shades that fail contrast

Light brand colours, such as pale blue, mint or yellow, often fail as text or button colours. WCAG sets a minimum contrast of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text and for the visual boundaries of controls such as buttons and inputs. WebAIM found low-contrast text on 83.9% of top home pages in 2026. Darken the shade for text, or use it as a background behind dark text instead.

• Colour contrast on websites: why grey text loses readers

Mistake 4: colour as the only signal

Showing an error only by turning a field red, or a link only by changing its colour, fails people with colour vision deficiency, which is far more common in men than in women. WCAG's Use of Color criterion says colour must not be the only way to convey information. Add an icon, text or underline as well.

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Mistake 5: colours that change from page to page

When different pages were built at different times, buttons drift between blues and greens and headings between colours. Visitors use consistency to learn what things mean. Define the palette once, with named colours for text, background, primary, accent, success and error, and apply it everywhere.

• Inconsistent branding across your website and channels

Does colour psychology matter for a business website?

Colour associations exist but vary by culture, sector and context, and claims that one button colour always converts better are not reliable. What consistently matters is contrast and distinctiveness: the main button should look different from everything around it. Choose brand colours you can live with, then make sure they meet contrast rules.

When should you change your colour scheme?

Change colours when they fail contrast, clash with your brand or make buttons hard to spot. Do not change them because you are tired of them. Visitors see your site far less often than you do, and a colour change on its own rarely moves enquiries.

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a brand's signature colour is a light turquoise used for text, buttons and headings. Keeping turquoise for backgrounds and adding a darker shade for text and buttons keeps the brand recognisable and makes the pages readable.

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Colour scheme checklist

• Limit the palette to three main colours plus neutrals.
• Keep the accent for buttons and key links.
• Check every text colour against 4.5:1.
• Check button and input borders against 3:1.
• Add icons or text wherever colour carries meaning.
• Document the palette and apply it to every page.

Next step

Run your text and button colours through a free contrast checker and list any that fail.