Make sure the colors you use are reader friendly. Stay far away from hard to read combinations like yellow on white. This applies to hovered link colors too.
This is a link, can't you tell? Probably not. So always make your links a different color than the rest of the text, or at least a different style (i.e. underlined). Make it obvious that your links are links. Visitors will not click on links they cannot find, nor will the average user go hunting for them. If you're lucky and they do go hunting, I can guarantee they're not having any fun.
If you have trouble picking colors, consider using this tool or something like it to pick a scheme. This particular tool will let you choose a base color, and will give you other colors to use. It will also let you see how the colors would look to people with visual impairments like total color blindness.
A very useful color scheme chooser
Backgrounds
If you're designing a site for a business, it's often a good idea to stay away from dark backgrounds as they can take away from the professionalism of a site. White, or light colors are usually best. This does not apply to personal sites. If the site is about you, use whatever colors you want, as long as it won't hurt people's eyes. The biggest issue is to know your audience.
If you are going to use a patterned background, make sure your text is still readable over it, and that it's not too busy as it may distract from your content.
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