How can I change a button's color on hover?

a.button a:hover means "a link that's being hovered over that is a child of a link with the class button".

Go instead for a.button:hover.

Seems your selector is wrong, try using:

a.button:hover{
     background: #383;
}

Your code

a.button a:hover

Means it is going to search for an a element inside a with class button.

Related