Don't force users to install strange BHOs. Many tech-savvy users won't do it. Common offenders include unusual video players, image viewers, and platforms for interactive games. For most standard use cases, there is a trusted plugin, such as Windows Media Player or even Flash) that will do what you want without driving away users.
Give your visitors the ability to search your site so that they can more easily find what they are looking for. If someone cannot find what they are looking for right away, their next thought will be to look for a search field. Put this somewhere obvious and include a search button.
Include a link to the homepage on every page of your site. One of the best ways to do this is to make a graphic title for your page that can be included on all pages. Web users are used to clicking on a graphic to return home so there won't be a learning curve to navigating your site.
Test your website in the most popular browsers and platforms to make sure that it displays correctly. Sometimes scripts that work in one browser may not produce the same results in another browser. So you may need take extra measures, like adding a function for browser detection, in order to ensure that your website will display properly under most conditions.
To make a more attractive website, try using your own pictures. Pictures help to break up a boring text-only website and give it a more user friendly vibe. People always like to look at interesting pictures that they have never seen before, and many times will spend hours on your site looking at them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHbD_cvZEE8
Do tests on your site to make sure that it's up and running properly on different operating systems and different type of browsers as well. When you do this you then cover all of your tracks and make sure that as many users as possible are able to browse through your site.
If you're having any doubts about your ability to create a great site, you can always scale back the vision. A site doesn't need a forum and a chat room and a videos page and a miscellaneous section. You can make do just fine with only a few options. It's great to dream big, but you need to be a realist.
Avoid adding too much content on your page that will make your site lag which can deter people from coming back to your site. You want people to have the feeling of wanting to come back to your site, not the other way around. So be sure to check your site from time to time to make sure what you add isn't lagging it up.
Find inspiration from other sites on the web. You need to let others inspire your own personal creativity so that your site outshines the competition.
When you start to think about all of the writing for your site consider hiring someone who is good at putting words together to make your site sound more interesting overall. Good wording is a great way to draw people in and keeping them to come back to your site over and over again.
It's not that people browsing the web are overly picky or anything; it's just that no one wants to visit an unattractive site that's slow to load and that barely http://www.thesitewizard.com/webdesign/index.shtml functions. You can avoid looking like an amateur by using the design tips that you learned here.
