| The goal of your website should be to guide the | | | | Unless your writing a 200 page book, it should take |
| consumer through your page and have them take | | | | you about 1 to 5 minutes to spell check your work. |
| the action you desire, whether that action be a | | | | 4. Make the text contrast with its background. Black |
| newsletter sign up or a sale. | | | | text on white background is the easiest to read. In |
| Websites that make their visitors work to read them | | | | most cases, the more contrast, the better. |
| always turn a large percentage of potential | | | | Black-on-white or white-on-black are examples of the |
| consumers away. Text colors that clash with the | | | | highest contrast you can get. But be forewarned, |
| background color, undersized fonts, and big blocks of | | | | white text on a black background creates a "glow" |
| text are some common problems that can determine | | | | which often times negatively affect your website. |
| whether or not the website is successful. | | | | Red on Blue creates the glow effect as well. You can |
| Here are 5 tips that will help you increase the flow | | | | use colors if you like, but as a rule of thumb if you |
| and readability of your website: | | | | have to squint to read your text, there's not enough |
| 1. Make the font size big enough to read. No matter | | | | contrast. |
| who your target audience is they don't want to | | | | 5. Break up blocks of text. No matter how good a |
| strain their eyes trying to read tiny text. The | | | | writer you are, people don't want to read endless |
| standard internet text is Arial size 2 (12 pt). You can | | | | pages of text. Using sub-headlines between |
| use other fonts and sizes if you wish but keep in | | | | paragraphs and bullet points is a great way to break |
| mind that Arial size 2 is popular because it's easy to | | | | up those text blocks. |
| read. | | | | Generally, you should only use bullet points once |
| 2. Format your text using CSS. Cascading Style | | | | throughout your web page, but in some cases using |
| Sheets (CSS) are the way to go - use one style | | | | bullet points more than once might be necessary. If |
| sheet and control how text looks on your entire site. | | | | you're selling a product or service you should always |
| Make a change to the style sheet and your whole | | | | list the benefits. Bullet points change the pace of the |
| site is updated. It makes things a lot simpler. | | | | writing and slow down the scanning. |
| 3. Spell check everything. Misspellings make your | | | | Making your websites content more legible is easy |
| website look tacky and unorganized. Nothing irritates | | | | and it doesn't take a lot of time. Your website will |
| visitors more than having to guess what your | | | | look more professional and your visitors will tend to |
| message is because the web page has spelling errors. | | | | stick around longer, making those visitors more likely |
| It makes you look like you don't care enough to get | | | | to become a customers. |
| it right. Take a minute and use the spell check tool. | | | | |