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If you're doing business on the internet, one of the most important aspects of your businesses success is your web site. If your web site doesn't look professional, no matter what product you're offering, your chances of success are minimal.

Before you begin, if you've never designed a web page, it would be wise to become familiar with HTML. (Hypertext Markup Language). A great place to start is NCSA Beginner's Guide to HTML http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html

The main page of your web site should be under 60KB in size and take only 30 seconds to load. If a page takes too long to load, your potential customer will not wait. Ultimately costing you business.

Be cautious when selecting background and text colors. Busy backgrounds make text difficult to read and draw the attention away from the text. Always be consistent with your background theme on each page of your site.

Use minimal animated graphics. These can be very distracting and can cause your page to look unprofessional.

Your main page should specifically let visitors know exactly what you are offering. How many times have you visited a site and never figured out exactly what they were selling?

Try to avoid placing banner exchange banners at the top of your page. These can instantly take your customers or even be indexed by search engine robots.

Limit the number of banners on your site to no more than two per page.

Always, include your contact information and try to reply to all comments and suggestions within 48 hours. This will help promote good business relationships.

ALWAYS check and double check your site for spelling errors. If you have several errors, this will make your site appear to be unprofessional. If you are designing your site using an html editor, use spell check.

Continually add new content to your site. Give your visitors a reason to keep coming back.

Design your site to be easily navigated. Place your navigation links together at the top, bottom, left or right side of the page. Use tables to neatly align your links. If you must use frames, use them sparingly. Avoid making your visitors have to scroll from side to side to view your content. This can be very irritating. Offer your visitors a choice. Frames verses No Frames. Try to keep the number of clicks required to get from your main page to any other page on your site down to 4. Keep in mind, your visitors may enter your site from pages other than your main. Always have good navigation links on every page.

If you must use Java on your site, use it sparingly. Offer your visitors a choice. Java verses No Java. Java can be slow and has a tendancy to crash browsers.

Make sure your images and links are working properly.

Do not set sound to "autoplay" when someone visits your site. This can be very distracting.

View your site through different browsers and screen resolutions so you will see how your site will be viewed by your visitors.

Always strive to learn. Knowledge is the key to success.

* Article by Shelley Lowery of Brajusta Publishing.