colorswall.com

If you're new to Ahrefs and want to run your first SEO audit, the fastest path is: open Site Explorer, enter your target URL, review the Overview for a health snapshot, then dig into Organic Keywords, Top Pages, and Site Audit to find specific problems. From there, build a short prioritized to-do list instead of trying to fix everything at once.

This tutorial walks through that workflow using a realistic starting scenario, explains what the numbers mean, and shows how to turn findings into actions.

Before You Start: Pick a Narrow Scope

A common beginner mistake is auditing an entire large website on day one. The reports become overwhelming, and you can't tell which issues matter.

Instead, choose one of these starting points:

• A single important page (your homepage or a key product/service page)
• A small site (under ~50 pages, e.g., a personal blog or small business site)
• One section of a bigger site (e.g., /blog/)

For this tutorial, assume you're auditing a small business site with about 30 pages. The same steps scale up later.

You'll need an Ahrefs account to follow along. Ahrefs offers paid plans, and pricing and feature limits change over time, so check the current Pricing page for what's included in each tier before committing.

Step 1: Enter Your Target in Site Explorer

Site Explorer is Ahrefs' core tool for analyzing any website or URL.

1. Open Site Explorer from the top navigation.
2. In the search box, paste your domain (e.g., example.com).
3. Choose the Exact URL or Domain mode depending on scope. For a full-site view, use Domain or Prefix; for a single page, use Exact URL.
4. Press Enter.

You'll land on the Overview report. Don't try to absorb everything — focus on four numbers first.

Reading the Overview Snapshot

Important caveat: Ahrefs' traffic and keyword numbers are estimates based on its own data. They won't match Google Search Console or your analytics exactly. Treat them as directional, not absolute.

Step 2: See What You Already Rank For

Go to Organic Keywords in the left sidebar. This shows queries where your site appears in search results.

Sort by Traffic (descending) to see which pages bring the most estimated visitors. Then look for:

• Keywords ranking in positions 4–15 — these are often the easiest wins. A small content or on-page improvement can push them onto page one.
• Keywords with high volume but low position — potential opportunities if the topic is relevant.
• Irrelevant keywords — if you rank for something off-topic, it may signal thin or mismatched content.

Write down 5–10 of the position 4–15 keywords. These become your first optimization targets.

Step 3: Find Your Best and Weakest Pages

Open Top Pages. This ranks your URLs by estimated organic traffic.

Look for two things:

1. Your top performers — understand what topics and formats work. Can you create more content like this?
2. Pages with traffic but poor rankings — these may need on-page fixes (title, headings, internal links).

If a page gets zero traffic and targets a topic you care about, it's a candidate for a rewrite or consolidation.

Step 4: Run a Technical Site Audit

Now move to Site Audit. This crawls your site and flags technical and on-page issues.

1. Click Site Audit → New project.
2. Enter your domain and set crawl settings (default is usually fine for a small site).
3. Start the crawl and wait for it to finish.

Once complete, you'll see a Health Score and a list of issues grouped by category.

Which Issues to Fix First

Not all issues are equal. Prioritize in this order:

Ignore low-impact warnings (like minor meta description length) until the big items are handled.

Step 5: Turn Findings Into a To-Do List

You now have raw data. Convert it into a short, actionable list. Example:

1. Fix 3 broken links found in Site Audit.
2. Rewrite title tags on 5 pages with duplicate titles.
3. Improve 4 pages ranking in positions 6–12 by adding missing subtopics and internal links.
4. Remove or update 2 thin pages with no traffic.

Keep the list to 5–10 items max for your first audit. Finishing a short list beats starting a long one.

Common Beginner Mistakes

• Chasing every red flag. Site Audit flags many minor issues. Fix what affects rankings and users first.
• Trusting estimates as exact numbers. Ahrefs data is modeled, not measured from your analytics.
• Auditing a huge site too early. Start small to learn the interface.
• Ignoring search intent. A page can be technically perfect but still fail if it doesn't match what searchers want.
• Forgetting to re-crawl. After fixes, run Site Audit again to confirm improvements.

Where to Go Next

Once your first audit is done:

• Compare with competitors using Site Explorer's Competing Domains and Content Gap reports.
• Track keyword rankings over time with Rank Tracker.
• Explore backlink opportunities in the Backlinks and Link Intersect reports.
• Set up recurring Site Audit crawls so new issues surface automatically.

Your first audit isn't about perfection — it's about building a repeatable habit: enter a target, read the key reports, pick the highest-impact fixes, and act. Do that once a month and your site's health compounds.

ColorsWall surfaces its most-used palettes in two places: the Most viewed Color Palettes section on the homepage, and the Popular Palette Collections section just below it. Both are ranked by view count, so they reflect what other designers are actually opening rather than an editorial pick. If you need a ready-made scheme for a UI, brand, or illustration project, start with these two lists before generating anything from scratch.

Most viewed Color Palettes

This section lists individual palettes with their HEX codes and a running view count. The homepage shows the top entries, and a View more link opens the full ranking.

A few patterns are worth noting when you pick from this list:

• Platform palettes (Discord, Steam, Bootstrap 4) are already tuned for interface use — they include background, surface, and accent tones rather than a flat rainbow.
• Flag palettes (Ukraine) are minimal, usually two colors, and work as accent pairs rather than full schemes.
• Named color sets (Rainbow, 12 Color Rainbow, Shades of Light Grey) are ordered progressions, useful when you need a gradient or a sequential scale.
• Subject palettes (Human skin tone, Pixel art) are domain-specific and save time on illustration or character work.

Popular Palette Collections

Collections group multiple palettes under one theme, so they are the faster route when you need a consistent set rather than a single scheme. The homepage lists them with a palette count and view count.

Choose by scope:

• Useful — small set (8 palettes) of general-purpose designer colors. Good starting point if you don't yet know what you need.
• Material UI — the largest of the three (39 palettes) and organized by shades and tints, so it fits projects that follow Material-style layering.
• Most Popular Brand — brand-derived palettes, best when you want recognizable, high-contrast commercial color combinations.

A View more link at the end of the section opens the full collection index.

Finding palettes by tag

The Popular Hashtags section at the bottom of the homepage lets you browse by theme instead of by rank. Tags shown include #3d, #accessible, #action, #admin, #adobe, #advertising, #aesthetic, #ai, #aliceblue, #amber, #amethyst, #android.

This is the better entry point when your requirement is a constraint rather than a style — for example, #accessible if contrast matters, or #android / #adobe if you're matching a platform or tool's conventions.

How to use a palette once you find it

The homepage's How to use? section describes the workflow:

1. Sign In to ColorsWall.com.
2. Open a palette and customize colors in palette.
3. Populate Name and Save new palette.

More detail is in the site's Help Center. If none of the ranked palettes fit, the same page offers Generate Palette and Get Random Palette under Palette Tools, plus a Smart colors finder, Find name of the color, Convert color HEX to RGB, and Color Contrast Checker under Color Tools.

Which section to start with

• Need one scheme fast for a UI or brand → Most viewed Color Palettes, and prefer the platform or brand entries over the rainbow sets.
• Need a consistent family of palettes → Popular Palette Collections, choosing Material UI for the widest coverage.
• Have a specific constraint (accessibility, platform, mood) → Popular Hashtags.
• Nothing fits → use Generate Palette or Get Random Palette, then save your own.

ColorsWall hosts ready-made palettes for well-known brands and frameworks, each listed with its exact HEX codes, so you can pull a reference scheme straight into a design project. The most direct route is the Most Popular Brand collection, which gathers brand palettes in one place. This works well when you want a recognizable, on-brand look or a starting point you then adjust. It is less suited if you need official brand assets or usage rules — ColorsWall provides color values, not licensing or brand guidelines.

Where the brand palettes live

Two entry points on the site lead to brand and framework colors:

• Most viewed Color Palettes — the homepage list, where several brand palettes rank by views.
• Popular Palette Collections — includes a Most Popular Brand collection described as a set of popular brand color palettes.

The homepage list shows view counts next to each palette, which is a rough signal of how often designers reach for that scheme.

Brand and framework palettes with their HEX codes

These are the palettes named on the site, with the colors as listed:

The Bootstrap 4 palette is the most structured example: instead of one mood, it maps colors to interface roles (primary, success, info, warning, danger, inverse, faded). That makes it useful as a semantic reference even outside Bootstrap.

Choosing the right palette for your scenario

Use the same dimensions to compare, then pick based on your goal:

A practical rule: pick a palette whose purpose matches yours. A brand palette gives you identity colors; a framework palette gives you functional colors. Mixing them usually means you still need to define which color does which job.

How to apply a palette to your own project

1. Open the palette you want (from the homepage list or the Most Popular Brand collection).
2. Copy the HEX codes you need — each color is shown as a code you can read directly.
3. If you want to adjust rather than copy, use the site's palette tools: Generate Your Palette, Get Random Palette, and Compare Palettes.
4. To keep an edited version, sign in, customize the colors in the palette, then populate a name and save it as a new palette. The site points to its Help Center for more detail on this flow.

The expected result: you end up with either the original brand codes or a saved, renamed variant you can reuse.

Common sticking points

• Brand colors are not brand rules. A palette gives you HEX values; it does not grant permission to use a company's identity or tell you its approved combinations.
• View counts are popularity, not quality. A high view count (for example, the Pixel art palette at 1.69M) means it is frequently opened, not that it suits your project.
• Framework palettes assume roles. If you copy Bootstrap 4 colors without keeping the primary/success/danger mapping, you lose the reason the palette works.
• Saving requires an account. Customizing and saving a palette is tied to signing in, so plan for that if you want to keep edits.

You can create and save a custom palette on ColorsWall by signing in, customizing the colors in a palette, then populating a name and saving it. The site's own "How to use?" section lists exactly these steps: Sign In → Customize colors in palette → Populate Name and Save new palette, with more details in the Help Center. Signing in is required for saving, so plan on having an account before you start.

Before you start

• An account on ColorsWall. The workflow begins with "Sign In," and saving is tied to that account.
• The colors you want to use. Have your HEX codes ready if you already know them, or be prepared to pick colors visually.
• A name for the palette. The save step asks you to populate a name, so decide on something descriptive.

Step-by-step: create and save a palette

1. Sign in

Go to ColorsWall and sign in. This is the first step in the site's documented flow and is what lets you save your work rather than just browse.

2. Open a palette to customize

Start from a palette you want to work with — either one of the existing palettes on the site or your own starting point. The site's instruction is to "Customize colors in palette," meaning you adjust the individual color swatches within the palette.

3. Adjust the colors

Change the colors in the palette to match what you need. ColorsWall works with HEX and RGB codes, so you can work with the code values directly. If you need help finding or converting a color, the site's Color Tools include a Smart colors finder, a HEX-to-RGB converter, a Random Color Generator, and a Color Contrast Checker.

4. Populate the name

Give the palette a name in the name field. This is the "Populate Name" step — a named palette is what gets saved to your account.

5. Save the new palette

Save it. The site describes this as "Save new palette," and the result is a palette stored under your account rather than a one-off on-screen arrangement.

6. Verify it saved

Check that your palette now appears in your account's palettes. If you want to confirm the exact colors, compare the saved HEX/RGB values against what you intended.

What you can do once it's saved

• Reuse and share it. A saved palette lives in your account, so you can return to it instead of rebuilding the colors.
• Compare it with others. The Palette Tools include Compare Palettes, useful when you're deciding between two saved options.
• Generate variations. Generate Your Palette and Get Random Palette can produce new starting points you can then customize and save the same way.

Common snags

• Trying to save without signing in. The documented flow starts with Sign In; without it, you can browse but not save.
• Skipping the name. The save step expects a populated name, so an unnamed palette won't complete the flow as described.
• Losing track of exact values. If precise colors matter, note the HEX/RGB codes as you go — the Color Tools can convert and check them, but only if you know what you started with.

For anything beyond these steps, the site points to its Help Center for more details.

ColorsWall is a free color resource site built around three things: individual color palettes, curated palette collections, and small color tools. You can browse thousands of palettes, copy HEX codes, generate a random palette, look up a color name, convert HEX to RGB, check contrast, and — after signing in — customize, name, and save your own palettes. It suits designers, developers, and anyone who needs a ready-made color scheme or a quick color conversion without installing software.

What you can find on ColorsWall

The homepage is organized around browsing rather than searching, so the fastest way in is usually the "Most viewed Color Palettes" list.

Each palette shows its color swatches with HEX values, and the site states that new palettes are added daily. View counts on the homepage give a rough signal of which palettes other people use most — for example, the Pixel art palette shows 1.69M views, Discord 0.25M, and Ukraine flag 0.23M.

Color tools available

Under "Color Tools" the site lists:

• Smart colors finder — find a color by describing or matching it
• Find name of the color — get the name for a given color
• Convert color HEX to RGB — switch between the two code formats
• Random Color Generator — produce a random color
• Color Contrast Checker — test how two colors read against each other

Under "Palette Tools" it lists:

• Generate Your Palette
• Get Random Palette
• Compare Palettes

These are the practical shortcuts if you already know what you need and don't want to browse the gallery.

How to use the site

The site's own "How to use?" section describes this flow:

1. Sign In to ColorsWall.
2. Customize colors in palette — adjust the swatches to what you want.
3. Populate Name and Save new palette — give it a name and store it.

More detail is available in the site's Help Center. If you only need to read codes, you can browse palettes and copy HEX values without an account; signing in is what unlocks saving your own work.

When ColorsWall is the right choice

Use it when you want:

• A starting point — pick a popular palette (Bootstrap 4, Material UI, a brand palette) instead of building from scratch.
• Quick conversions — HEX to RGB, or a color name lookup, without opening a design tool.
• A contrast sanity check before shipping text and background colors.
• A saved personal palette you can return to, which requires an account.

Skip it if you need a full design system with tokens, versioning, or team collaboration — ColorsWall is a palette and color-utility site, not a design platform. The site does not publish pricing information in the material reviewed here, so treat account features as available after sign-in rather than assuming any paid tier.