I discussed the speed of your website load, and now we'll discuss element 2:

2. Looks great: Please remember that this subject has so many opinions among so many people that it really is up to you in the end. What you think looks great, may look stupid or overdone to someone else. If you get criticism in feedback from your visitors, keep it in mind if it is constructive. We'll just discuss a few things to help you decide for yourself.

The first and best thing to do is to find out what the big guys are doing. You know the sites that get huge hits. Study these sites. What about them is pleasing to your eyes? Is it a certain way the navigation links are presented? Is it the location of certain elements on the page? What elements make up these websites that make them easy to look at? Do they have really cool graphics? Do they present the content in an easy-to-look-at way? Notice that they don't usually overcrowd the page. A lot of junk crammed into one page turns people off. Their lettering and graphics are clean-looking. No raggedy edges (aliasing). Keep their formats in mind when you design yours. What colors do they stick to? How do they present their menus/links? Time them. How fast do they load? What elements on each webpage catch your eye first. Look at these websites with a different eye than just somebody visiting there. These websites were designed by professionals doing this for a living. What types of presentation do they know brings people back. Look at it from an artistic and marketing eye. What about these sites provides a lot of marketing material?

Don't copy them, of course, but keep in mind where their navigation links go, where the logo usually goes, how much content is on the main page, how the navigation links they have are pretty standard.

You'll notice that almost every really good page has some of the following links:

Contact Us

About Us

Help

Feedback to Webmaster

General Feedback

Links to other sites related

Home (on all pages except home, of course)

Back Buttons, Next Buttons, Paging for pages that go together

Search this site for....

These are just a few of the common links that you'll see on really successful pages. Step back and look at your page from a marketing and artistic viewpoint. Would you stay long?

If you need help with the "Looks Great" part of your website and you insist on doing the design yourself, here are some pretty good sites to give you help:

http://www.webmonkey.com http://www.flashkit.com http://www.macromedia.comSo

3. It's links actually work: I've mentioned this in another article, but it is worth mentioning again. Test and test and test your site for broken links. Put it through some very exhaustive checks to make sure all the links people click actually go somewhere and to make sure the places they go when they click are where they were supposed to end up in the first place. Have friends or coworkers test the links for you to get a second, fresh eye to look. It helps to put an email link at the bottom of each page that says something like: Problems with our site? Email the Webmaster. This will correct more mistakes than you'll ever correct on your own. People love to gripe about how your website doesn't work as advertised. It's good criticism for you. When responding to them, respond politely and thank them for pointing out this problem. When I return in Part 3, I’ll talk about quick response to requests by your prospective customers. Thanks for joining me!