I visit a lot of websites. And one of the things I notice again and again is the size of the font used for the main copy.

Some of these websites have their copy in 12px.

TWELVE PIXELS!

One of my favorite articles on this is from Smashing Magazine, an online resource for web developers and web designers. The article is: 16 pixels for body copy. Anything less is a mistake.

A few months ago, someone wrote to me to tell me my large font on a website was too large. I had it set to 22px. Yes, it’s large, but what he may not have realized is that according to the article above, 9% of Americans have poor eyesight and wear corrective lenses. At age 40, only half the light gets through the retinas as opposed to the full 100% at age 20.

The point is: you want your copy to get read by your visitor. When I come across a website that has tiny font, I barely stay to read it. It’s too difficult to read.

The other part of readability is the distance between the lines of text. Make it too small and again, the page looks crowded and most people won’t want to read it. Many websites use a distance of either 120% or 130%. It helps to make the page much more readable.

So go ahead and increase the size of your font from 12px to 16px. That is the size web browsers use and if you’d like to get attention, it would be a good idea to follow suit. Increase your font size and you just may see an increase in your sales!