Five Ways to Improve the Readability of your website

While we are in the video age, text still reigns supreme on websites. Since that is the case, it is important that your visitors be able to actually read it!

Consider these five ways to improve the readability of your website:

1) Use a black colored font on a white background. Your main content should at least be in a content box with a white background, similar to how this website works. You can use other colors around the content box. You can do ALL sorts of things outside the content box, BUT make sure you use black on white for the main article. Use pure black, #00000. Do not use some almost black color that is actually a form of grey or taupe. Black on white reads the best. It always has and always will.

2) Choose a readable, yet interesting font. Arial and Helvetica are the ole standbys. Very readable. Not very interesting. Try Verdana inside. Other good fonts to consider: Georgia or Tahoma.

3) Line spacing (or line height). This is the distance between the line below and the line above. Make sure it is at least 1.5. Make it too small and the words run tight, too large and a readers eyeballs fall all over the page.

4) Keep advertising out of the main content of the article. Put your Adsense at the top or bottom. Forget using word-sense technologies that highlight key advertised words. Annoying and distracting. I know Internet marketers will disagree here. Here is my deal: Good content ultimately sells. If readers read it (and CAN read it without hindrance) and find it worthwhile, they will be back. I am a believer in letting your content sell itself. Readers will come back and reward you in other ways. Don’t try to force them to click something when they are in the middle of your content.

5) Remove all other annoyances to reading. This includes fly-ins, Flash, etc. The goal here is to ENABLE people to read, to create VALUE, so people come back for more. You want them to come back right? Do not chase them away.