6) The site must be easy to navigate so that a visitor can find what they are looking for with one or two clicks.

7) Lastly and probably most importantly, content of site must be good. Not only must it be good, but also it must offer a benefit to visitor. The content must be interesting enough to either make potential customer buy on spot, with use of compelling headlines or banner ads, or it must give them a reason to return.

If you are maintaining your own website, keep it simple. It is then that much easier not to fall into design traps mentioned above. Here are some tips that could improve your site design while maintaining a professional look.

1) Use background color in tables instead of graphics to add color to your site.

2) Make use of percentages instead of absolute values in tables for width and height values, but then again check that final result looks OK. This allows your web pages to stretch to fit browser screen.

3) Use CSS style sheets to keep your site uniform. There are excellent tutorials on how to use style sheets at House of Style http://www.westciv.com. Using style sheets is as easy as putting an image in your site. You simply link each of your pages to style sheet. Then if you want your whole site to use a different background color or a different font, you only change style sheet. Style sheets can greatly simplify HTML on your pages.

4) If you are using graphics for your site navigation, make sure you also include a text menu (near bottom of page is a good place). This is because a) some search engines have problems following graphic links (especially JavaScript and image maps) and b) some people turn off graphics on their browsers so make sure that you also use ALT tags to describe navigation buttons.

5) Don't use fancy fonts that you have downloaded from net because unless they are supported on your visitors' browsers, they will not be seen. Keep fonts simple.

Finally, put yourself in shoes of your target audience, and ask yourself if your site gives you a reason to browse further. Using strong headlines and compelling text is more important than special effects and large graphics.

The best websites from a marketing point of view are often simplest.

Here I will visit again.

Also to top it off I contacted owner by email about a possible product. He did everything right, he answered all my questions, I got an answer with in 48 hours and he addressed me by first name, making me feel Important. This is a person I would pay money to!

And on subject of paying money, most people are looking for free answer to a successful web site. I believe in concept of "You get what you pay for"

However, sometimes you get more than you pay for. An example of this is Internet marketing Challenge or IMC

http://www.marketingchallenge.com

This is a subscriber site for marketing your web site. Of subscriber sites that I have joined, this one has provided more real effective help that is not available elsewhere.

Plus forums they have for answering every question and web site reviews, are worth more than any other service available!

Do I gain anything by recommending this site? Yes satisfaction that you will get right information, first time! If you haven't paid for help, do it right first time, IMC is one to join!

Does you site look like these? It should, all your visitors know about you is what's on computer screen, First impressions count!