Layout and Design
First and foremost, first impressions really do count! The first thing visitors will see on your site is your layout or splash page.

• Choose your colors wisely! You DO NOT have to pick one color theme, sometimes too much of the same color gets old. You need some variety. At the same time, you do not have to use all the colors in the rainbow either (I'm a hypocrite for this one!) Some people find it annoying when you have TOO many colors.
• Position your frames, divs, and everything else correctly. Remember that there's more than one resolution! I personally use 1280x800. It's very annoying when I go to sites that have their layouts coded for 1024x786 and the positioning is all wrong. Instead of using center or percentages to position your frames, divs, etc, use absolute positioning.
• Make your text readable. Don't use a font that you needed to download and install for your site, otherwise everyone who doesn't have it will see it in Times New Roman (or whatever their default font is set to). Instead, use default fonts like Verdana, Arial, Times, Tahoma, etc. Make sure your text is not too big or too small! It's bad to strain your eyes so much by trying to ready tiny text. Also, choose a color that is easy to read for your layout. For example, do not make your text yellow unless you have a dark background!
• Make your site Internet Explorer AND Firefox friendly. It may be a hassle, but it's worth it. There are a lot of people us choose to use Firefox instead of IE (like me) and many times, sites are only IE-friendly. If you code your layouts CORRECTLY, changes are it will be perfect for both browsers.
• Make your site easy to navigate around (ex: image map on a layout, sidebar, etc). Don't make us search for the subpages/links/menu, make it easy and noticeable for visitors to see. If we can't find it, we will assume you only have an index page!
• dO nOt TyPe iN sTiCkY CaPs LiKe ThIs. It's VERY annoying.
• Don't use chatspeak. Saying "lol" once in a while is fine but going "lyke omg 2day was so mch fun! me n her went 2 da movies n we saw [insert move here]. then iuno tony came ova n wuz lyke dude wut r u doin 2nite." It get's retarded after a while and people will just think you're illiterate/immature.
• Make your own layouts and graphics. What's the point of owning your own website if you just copy and paste codes here and there or even STEAL other people's work?! Do not use the excuse that you don't have [insert image editting program here]! There are many people out there who have (and still) use Paint MS to make their graphics, and still manage to make them look good. Practice makes perfect. You can always do what I did at first: Download the trial version of Adobe Photoshop and make all the graphics/layouts I could for 30 days then download Jasc PSP and do the same thing. That will last you atleast two months, and you can do a lot in two months.

• Originality is always a plus. Try not to have the same exact things as every other website. Variety is always a good thing, well...most of the time!
• Keep your visitors occupied. If your site is just a blog site, where you just write out your thoughts and such (and you don't really care what people think, or your blog have some really juicy stuff - lol) then you don't REALLY need this. But if you want visitors to enjoy your site, have visitor content to keep them occupied like reading materials, tutorials, graphics, etc etc. It also helps when you are more interactive with your visitors (ex: have a tagboard, Q & A system, etc).