How important is aesthetic appeal???

It looks like you have put a lot of work and effort into your site, it's very good, the only thing I would say is that the colors are not good for the eye sight as in readability, I would find it hard reading that and so would not stay too long.

Cheers
Sue

I agree, ascetics are important, but readability and telling the visitor where the next action should be is key

The blue text is hard to read and may actually be impossible to read on some screens.

Check out the book "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug for some great in site in to effective web design.

Besides the blue text, though, I think you've got a great site.

Okie, Im changing the blue text to white

Selma,

Hello, you want your website to represent you the best it can, graphics and layout are crucial for a professional look and it also builds credibility and the illusion of quality. Point being a sense of quality is attached to a product if it has great packaging.

Its never gauranteed that graphics and layout will cause conversions but its gauranteed that great graphics and a great layout will not hurt conversions.

Readibility is crucial, words have impact and if the words you use are avoided then you cannot deliver your message properly.

I am going to be honest, despite possibly hurting your feelings.
There has been lots of research and black text on white is winner hands down.

If you cant change the background to white you could go with while lettering but I would not use just a bright white, I would go with a white that does not reflect so brightly back into your visitors eyes, and because your background is black there is a very high amount of contrast that will be going on. So stick with a less bright white.

I myself did a website like yours in the past because I thought the colors were cool and stood out. But it just simply isn't easy to read.

You need text that is easy to read, the best font for large chunks of text is a sarif font. Meaning a font with ornaments on it.

Headers are usually best looking being a sans serif font. No ornaments.
You should always make chunks of text easy to read and appealing, keeping them to a maximum of at the most 5 lines per chunk, I myself like 3 and four lines max.

Impact font is great for headlines or headers, there are a many others, if you just google best fonts for text or headlines, you will get some great suggestions.

As for your PICK BETTER BETS, Its almost never good to have all caps, because its hard to read.

The one thing you are trying to achieve is to sell your product, so you need to immediatly attract your visitors eyes to something and then move then through your layout with your text size, font and spacing and others visuals.

You want to lead the visitors eyes right where you want them to go.............

I enclosed a graphic that you can use free of charge that might work better for your site, if you need it bigger just let me know or if you need something else. Free of charge.

As long as its simple.

P.S. The graphic below should have a transparent background once its loaded, if not I will make you another.

I like the no-nonsense structure of your site. Good work. You don't have excessive eye-candies all around.

But your color scheme is suffering right now. The blue heading "Pick Better Bets" is unreadable. The background and foreground color should have some contrast. I'd recommend having a simple design with white background and black text, which looks cool and calm. Because that's how we're used to reading.

But don't change it just because I said so! If you like the black background, then you can find better suiting text colors for it. Use an online color scheme generating tool to check which bright color looks good on a dark background.

Regards,
Revolves