If you’re considering a site redesign, the smartest way to go about it is to test, test, and test some more.  Folks looking for more specific advice - or at least a starting point - may find some information collected by Antrepo4.com useful, though.

A site’s dominant color is perhaps the one thing that’ll most affect first-time visitors’ desire to stay or leave.  Go too bright or too dull, and you risk looking unprofessional or appearing uninteresting.  Some hues don’t do it for certain people, either.

So here’s the secret to playing follow the leader.  Antrepo4.com looked at the top sites in four different categories, MG Siegler writes, “Blogs favor red . . . design sites favor gray, game sites favor green and the massive sites, like Google, Facebook and MySpace, favor blue.”

Of course, he then continues, “But the results aren’t uniform, and actually, if you average all the colors together in all the categories, you get a nearly uniform light gray color.”

Don’t abandon the test, test, and test again approach to site design, then.  Heck, it’s good enough for Google and Yahoo, who have been known to agonize over 41 shades of blue and 141 homepage versions, respectively.  Just use this info as a starting place if you’re feeling creative.

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