The Rank Magic Blog

Balance your page between text, white space and graphics.

KISS -- Keep It Simple, Stupid. Eliminate unnecessary visual distractions.

Fix your fonts. On paper, serif fonts are easier to read, but on a computer monitor, sans serifs are easier. Keep the font size reasonable -- between 10 points and 14 points.

Clean up your background. Heavy textures make text hard to read. And makes sure there's enough contract between the background color and your text.

Graphics - avoid clutter. Use graphics when they serve a real purpose, like illustrating a difficult concept or breaking up dense sections of text.

Make Navigation Intuitive. People look for navigation links across the top and down the left side of the page. And make sure it's obvious where a navigation link will take someone.

Make your text readable. Aside from font choice, break dense text up into short paragraphs. Use bullets. Don't mix and match too many fonts. Use headings and sub-heads.

Avoid Scrolling. Vertical scrolling of the page si ok. But don't have a fixed height box of text with a separate vertical scroll bar. And never, never, never allow horizontal scrolling. Never!

Make it quick. If your web page takes too long to download, people give up on it and go somewhere else.  Eliminating graphic clutter will help a lot here.