How to create a perfect Website Back­ground

First im­pres­sions count, also when it comes to website back­grounds. It should subtly emphasise the website’s message without over­power­ing it. When designing the back­ground, factors such as colour com­pos­i­tion, image size, motif, legib­il­ity, and current trends are all important.

It takes only 50 mil­li­seconds to form an initial, decisive opinion about a website. Content or offers aren’t important here, because the sub­con­scious first reacts to colours, shapes, motifs, and com­pos­i­tions rather than logic. A website’s back­ground is an important part of this first im­pres­sion. Since back­grounds or website back­ground images are one of the largest elements, they also influence per­cep­tion.

High image quality and con­sist­ent design are important. Poor res­ol­u­tion, harsh colours, in­ap­pro­pri­ate motifs, or long loading times can cause site visitors to leave after just a few seconds.

A common mistake when creating a website is picking the wrong back­ground. But how do you know you’ve picked a good back­ground? First, you should consider your website’s content. Whether it's a lifestyle blog, an online shop, a corporate website, or an artist or career site, the back­ground should meet the re­quire­ments and ex­pect­a­tions of your target audience. Keep in mind that emotional marketing and emotional branding are par­tic­u­larly important for website design. However, emotional content won’t work for every website.

Ideally, your website back­ground should be discreet and un­ob­trus­ive, while making use of design and marketing potential. Before picking a back­ground, ask yourself these questions:

• Which motif or pattern matches my content and theme, brand, industry, or online shop?
• Which colour scheme and visual language should feature through­out?
• Do I prefer an abstract-min­im­al­ist look or a bold, colour-forward back­ground?
• Do images, photos, drawings, or embedded videos work as back­ground?
• Does the back­ground echo my brand’s/website’s message?
• Are text and page elements easy to ready?
• Do the colours create the desired effect?

As a rule, three options are available for website back­grounds, which can also be used in various com­bin­a­tions:

• Back­ground image: Widely used back­grounds like high-quality pho­to­graphs of people, land­scapes, products, objects, animals, or per­son­al­ised motifs that match your website can generate emotional impact. Drawings can also be used here.
• Back­ground video: Embedded videos are both modern and original, while conveying content in a short time. Make sure that the video is suited to your website, is pro­fes­sion­al, and doesn’t auto­mat­ic­ally play with sound, so as not to scare visitors away.
• Back­ground colour/pattern/texture: Single or mul­ti­col­oured page back­grounds are very common, as are colour gradients, full-surface colours, or creative patterns and textures. This can also contain the company logo and elegantly and dis­creetly elevate your copy.

Something that’s just as important as the design of your website back­ground is back­ground com­pos­i­tion. There are two main types that we can dif­fer­en­ti­ate between here:

• Body back­ground: This type of back­ground fills the entire or almost the entire back­ground screen. Here, the above design options can be used in­di­vidu­ally or combining images, video, gradients, patterns, or drawings.
• Content back­ground: Here, the back­ground doesn’t fill the entire space. Instead, select content and page elements are em­phas­ised, directing the eye with de­lib­er­ate accents.

How you approach designing your website back­ground depends on whether you’re using a website builder or a CMS like WordPress. Website building kits offer high-quality and versatile back­ground templates.

If you program a website yourself, you’ll need to integrate website back­ground images, designs, or videos in the page’s CSS. Thanks to design tools like CSS Flexbox or CSS Grid, designing your back­ground manually isn’t as tricky as it used to be. At first, visitors only see the full-screen back­ground image, but when they scroll, are in­tro­duced to the other elements on the page. An original parallax website can also impress site visitors with cool scrolling effects.

The question of which website back­ground is the most popular or suc­cess­ful isn’t straight­for­ward. Depending on the category, industry, target audience, or personal taste, different website back­grounds offer their own unique ad­vant­ages. You can draw in­spir­a­tion from the following trends and best practices:

You can structure your content by dividing your website into sections. For example, arrange the page using different coloured sections and dividers, aesthetic product images, logos, or other page elements.

Ideally, your website’s back­ground colours align with your brand colours. Make sure that high-quality images, il­lus­tra­tions, and videos also match your brand colours and that of buttons and menus.

Depending on the product and industry, the 'story' of your brand can be il­lus­trated at a glance with mean­ing­ful back­ground images. Whether landscape images, portraits, or il­lus­tra­tions, embedding text into your back­ground can be a great storytelling tool. A photo slideshow can deepen the message and emphasise your product or service range.

Less is sometimes more. Big brands like Tesla and Coca-Cola know this, too. Full-screen landing pages place the focus on the product and let images speak for them­selves.

A com­bin­a­tion of modern, appealing ty­po­graphy and original colour accents, il­lus­tra­tions, or geometric elements doesn’t only create a re­fresh­ing effect, but also provides structure. Abstract back­ground designs and creative effect will help you stand out from the crowd.

Frames and grids can help arrange content on your website and direct the visitor’s gaze. In com­bin­a­tion with images and il­lus­tra­tions, the focus can be shifted to products and important subpages in a targeted manner.

Back­ground videos and an­im­a­tions can make your website more in­ter­est­ing and livelier. It also offers an element of en­ter­tain­ment. However, don’t use design at the expense of website per­form­ance. If back­ground videos or an­im­a­tions cause long loading times, users will be quick to jump.

When looking for a suitable back­ground, templates provided by website builders or pro­fes­sion­ally made pho­to­graphs and videos are a great start. But stock photo galleries also provide a wide selection of images, patterns, and graphics, both for free and for a fee. Es­pe­cially popular are:

• iS­tock­photo
• Pexels
• Pixabay
• Shut­ter­stock
• Adobe Stock
• getty­im­ages

The following tips and rules will help you choose and design your website back­ground.

Colours are a message in them­selves. Con­sciously chosen colour com­pos­i­tions and colour accents trigger feelings and reactions. Blue, for example, has a calming and pro­fes­sion­al effect, but in the wrong context can come off as cool and off-putting. Red, on the other hand, radiates warmth and live­li­ness and, as a signal colour, has a par­tic­u­larly emotional effect. Colour gradients, where several colours are gradually combined, are also very popular for website back­grounds. Different sat­ur­a­tions create an in­di­vidu­al look and intensity.

It’s a good idea to in­cor­por­ate com­pos­i­tions co­ordin­ated around mono­chrome, solid, con­trast­ing, and gradient colous. A com­bin­a­tion of high-quality pho­to­graphs and matching colour patterns and gradients will also help structure your website back­ground. For this, take note of current colour trends from in­sti­tu­tions like Pantone Colour Institute or the AkzoNobel Global Aesthetic Center (Dulux).

A good homepage back­ground doesn’t distract from fore­ground elements such as copy, images, or product photos. The text in the fore­ground should always be legible and stand out clearly from the back­ground. Back­ground colours and trans­itions serve to emphasise the legib­il­ity of the page. Dark mode, which is becoming every popular, should present the page in the same way.

Whether it’s a photo, video, pattern, texture, or block colour, a pro­fes­sion­al back­ground matches the website’s overall intended im­pres­sion. It com­ple­ments it without dom­in­at­ing it. A full-screen page with a striking back­ground image, for example, can create a positive first im­pres­sion, while high­light­ing the page’s key content.

It’s a good idea to keep an eye on current web design trends. This will highlight success models, what works well, and which elements and designs suit your website. You can also get inspired by the back­grounds used by suc­cess­ful brands and learn from best practices.

Ideally, a back­ground’s colour com­pos­i­tion and visual language will match the overall website design. That’s why one of the pri­or­it­ies when picking a website back­ground is to make sure that it’s ap­pro­pri­ate for your brand, industry, and target audience. Choose a colour palette or brand colours from a few hues and stick to those through­out. Add matching images, il­lus­tra­tions, and pho­to­graphs for re­cog­ni­tion and a personal touch.

Since many visitors will access your site via mobile devices, mobile op­tim­isa­tion is es­pe­cially important. Back­grounds in too large file sizes or in the wrong format will impact the display and loading speed of mobile websites. This can have a negative impact on search engine rankings and placement in search results. Learn about mobile SEO and use re­spons­ive testing tools. Then check whether your website back­ground is displayed optimally on mobile devices and offers a good user ex­per­i­ence design.

These tips can help you optimise your website back­ground:

• Avoid Flash elements.
• Integrate re­spons­ive web design by using scalable back­ground images
• Compress large images and CSS.
• Use ap­pro­pri­ate image and font size.
• Inform browsers on screen sizes and scaling using Viewpoint Meta Tag.
• Test your mobile SEO with the Google Mobile Friendly Test, W3C Mobile Checker, or IONOS Website Checker.
• Use a CMS plug-ins like WPTouch for mobile website op­tim­isa­tion.

For optimal rendering, consider image size, di­men­sions, and file format. Images or videos should always have a high res­ol­u­tion. However, when files are too large, there’s a risk that the loading time of your website will de­teri­or­ate. So, make sure that your images aren’t bigger than 600 KB. The image format 1,920 x 1,080 pixels is widely used. Ul­ti­mately, the optimal values depend on the website and end devices.

Test which sizes and formats work best on your website. Vertical formats usually work better on mobile devices, while landscape formats are more suitable for desktop. The most re­com­men­ded file formats are .png and .jpg. While PNG images can be displayed with a lot of details and trans­par­ency effects, JPGs can be easily com­pressed. When in­teg­rat­ing website graphics, it’s best to use the SVG format.

An appealing website back­ground can be a reason for site visitors to stay. At the same time, it rep­res­ents your brand, product, or company, and em­phas­ises important elements on your website using colours and imagery. By investing time and effort in the design of a pro­fes­sion­al website back­ground, you’ll benefit from its marketing potential as well as creative op­por­tun­it­ies for emotional branding and corporate design.