There are many conflicting theories about colour and layout of a website, however there are a few rules that will help you improve your website visitor experiences. 

We might have seen literally hundreds of landing pages and websites that have great sales copy, are promoting quality products, and have a lot of potential to be a great, but the page looks horrible. Today we are going to focus on the readability and layout of a website. 

The purpose of a landing page or website is to get your visitors to read what you have to say. Whether you're selling products and services, or providing useful information, you need to be able to effectively communicate with your visitors for them to take the action you desire. That action could be clicking on a link, signing up for a newsletter, or purchasing a product. The size and colour of your text play a huge part in communicating your message to your visitors. Having Black Text, on a white background is THE easiest form of text to read. 

Using colour schemes that clash, or cause the text to be difficult to read will many times cause your visitors to leave your page immediately. If you want to use a different colour background or text colour, make sure that readability is not negatively affected. Below are a few rules that will help you improve your website. 

1.          Do not use dark text with a dark background. Dark text on dark background makes it hard to distinguish text from the background colour. Thus, making your eyes must focus harder. 

2.          Do not use text colours that clash with background colour. White text on a black background has a "glowing" like affect that makes your text hard to read. Red on blue also creates a negative glowing affect. 

3.          Do not use large text for your main sales copy or body paragraphs. It is ok to use larger text for links and headlines, but the main text of your page should be Arial Size 2 (12pt). Arial Size 2 is the internet standard. 

4.          Do not waste the space at the top of the page with unnecessary graphics, flash, or banners that have no purpose. Simply listing the name of your website, or domain name is a very poor use of this prime real estate space. The first fold of your website is the most important space that you have because it is the section of the page that is visible as soon as your page loads. Do not take up this space with unnecessary graphics, flash, or banners. A Strong headline that states the benefit of your product or service is always better than a banner that has no purpose.