Do pick a unique domain name.

Do develop a relationship and spend time (verbally, electronically or in person) with your webmaster. Remember, you are the subject matter expert at your job, your webmaster know about designing web sites - not necessarily about what you do. Invest the time in your webmaster's knowledge so they can design a site that truly does reflect you and your company.

  Do provide relative, timely and informative text on you web site.

  Do update your web site. at least once a quarter.

  Do advertise your web site. Email Blasts work great! You paid the money to have it developed, so make it work! Tell everyone. Put your address on business cards, flyers, posters, banners, other web sites, etc..

  Do keep navigation simply. If you have a large web site., viewers need to know where they are at and how to get back to the homepage.

  Do test and view your web site. on all different type of computer monitors and browsers.

  Do ensure your site is 501 compliant.

  Do ensure that contact information is easy accessible no matter where the viewer is at on your site.

  Do design the site for 800 x 600 resolution. Most viewers use this to make small text appear large for easy reading. If you don't, viewers will continuously have to scroll horizontally to see your entire page!

Do get your message across quickly. Statistice prove that viewers spend less than 30 seconds on a page. Ensure that they can easy access the content they are looking for.

  Don't have a web site. just to have a web site. Make it worth your money. It should either be for marketing purposes - to enhance the monetary growth of your company or informational - providing a service of information to viewers.

  Don't have a web site. that just has all pictures or images. Viewers are coming to your site to find out information, that mostly means they are coming to read text.

  Don't forget about your web site. Even strictly informational sites need routine maintenance to stay successfully!

  Don't use profane language, racial slurs, or any type of content that might discriminate against anyone.  It's not professional and very distasteful.

  Don't have broken links - it's frustrating!

  Don't overload pop-up advertisements. Maybe one for your site is okay, but 10 pop-up windows at once for irrelevant ads is the most annoying thing. Viewers are coming to your site because they think you have something they want - why would you want to detract from that?

  Don't steal another company's information. Remember - ideas are free, but copyrighted text and images are not!  Be unique and come up with your own text and graphics.

  Don't be overzealous and boast about something you can not stand up to. Viewers will see right through you!

  Don't promote spam on your site. That is the quickest thing that will get a viewer to hit that close button.

  Don't be overcharged for web design. I have seen allot of clients get ripped off for less than 5 pages and they were excessive amounts that began over $1,000.00. That's just ridiculous!

  Draw your ideal web site. out on paper.  Figure out what what your main topic are for your main links (or buttons) and then do an outline from there. This will help you decide what type of navigation will be best and easiest for your viewers to use.

  Design several different templates and ask people what they think looks best. Remember - what you like and what your viewers will like may be different. What you think is classy - someone else thinks is gaudy. Ask and tell everyone to look at your site.

  Be a one-stop shop! Time is precious and I enjoy going to a site where I can find all the information I am looking for on a particular subject, or reliable links to get the information I need.

  Provide a delicate balance between text, images and interactivity. Too many images lack content, too much text requires too much time, and too much pizzazz takes away the focus of the site.

  Don't mix styles. Decide if you want to be professional and elegant, creative, childish, sporadic, or whatever and stay with that theme throughout the entire site.

  Take the time to research a beneficial domain name. It doesn't necessarily have to be your company name.  Unique keywords are great for the search engines, especially with very competitive and common markets - such as, web design, computers, real estate, bridal.  These will get you a million different links of different categories of web sites  Trust me - it's difficult to pick a perfect domain name and the name you want, is usually taken.