How many times have you come across an agonizingly slow site, filled with images dancing, whirling, bouncing, and beckoning to you from screen? It's irritating to say least.

If you have to display a lot of graphics on one page, make them into thumbnails. Visitors can click on image they want to see in order to view full-sized version.

Also be sure you compress your images to make them as small as possible, and specify image WIDTH and HEIGHT in your HTML tag.

__3. Forget Frames.

A lot of people like look of frames. However, search engines cannot read them properly and improperly designed frames can leave your visitor 'trapped'. You can bet they'll never be back if you try to force them to stay!

BigNoseBird.com has a nice little tutorial on how to get 'Frames look' without actually using them. Read it at http://bignosebird.com/k3.shtml .

__4. Keep it Simple - and Use Common Sense.

The simpler and cleaner your HTML, more likely it will display exactly as you intended on different browsers.

* Limit number of fonts and colors you use. Pick a color scheme and stick to it.

* Keep your navigation consistent from page to page.

* If you use Javascript or VBScript, provide another way of viewing your information. Not all browsers support them.

* Use tables to properly layout your site. Don't force your visitors to use dreaded horizontal scroll bar to read your information! Tables can also add white space to your site for easier readability.

* Spell-check! A site filed with speling errs is veery heard to reed.

* At a minimum, check your site with two most popular browsers, Internet Explorer and Netscape.

Creating a web page is easy. Creating a *good* web page, however, takes a little more thought. Offer a content-rich site that's a pleasure to visit and your visitors will keep coming back!

Other bad sites, that take an eternity to load, may not ever be seen. People on web are impatient, and if it is too slow to load, many won't wait around to see that magnificent image of sunset on home page.

We're not going to examine what makes a good page, as that is subject of an entirely different discussion. What we are going to discuss is how to project that "nice guy" image.

A small picture of you goes a long way. Yes Virginia, not only is there a Santa Claus, but you will be dealing with a real live person. Is there proper contact information with a telephone number and a real physical address? How about guarantees? All of these go a long way to instilling confidence.

Are there any testimonials with contact information for people making them? When writers do their thing, they always include glowing testimonials from people you can't contact. Do you really believe them - somehow I doubt it. A recommendation from "Harry in San Diego" does little to engender my confidence.

Now this can cause a sticky situation as many people would not want their email address listed on a web site. A smart merchant will allow you to email them to receive testimonial list.

You really might be a nice guy, and your dog knows that, but to all others you have to prove it.