A successful web presence on the World Wide Web requires

Don't overload pages.

It's important to build a familiarity with graphics, text, navigation, forms, and banners, but if you are designing a large website, careful planning must be implemented to not overload pages. You want your viewer to find everything easily and avoid clutter and confusion among your buttons and links. You want viewers to be able to find everything from your home page while providing an attractive interface that is simple to understand.

If possible, try to avoid scrolling windows and text — this becomes tiresome when navigating a large site. This means giving your web site a lot of thought on how to break up your site. If your user is having to scroll down many pages, they often become lost within the site and will lose interest in continuing very far.

Put something worthwhile on every page.

When a page is being downloaded by a viewer, you want to capture their attention with exciting content, graphics, and overall appearance. If your home page is attractive and designed well, you will attract users further into your site. If the pages become dull and lack content, however, users will leave, never to return. It often helps to have a "What's New" topic heading to let your viewers know that content is always being updated and it is worth while to check back for updated information.

Create a text-only option.

At the present speed of the Internet, many users will turn off graphics and images to increase the speed of downloads. Some users are likely to have slower connections and older computers, but it is important to not count these viewers out.

Check your pages in different browsers.

Your web site may look good to you in Netscape, but may be different on Internet Explorer. As well as checking different browsers, you should test your site in different version numbers of a single browser. Netscape 4.7 and Explorer 5.0 have different capabilities with plug-ins such as Flash and Shockwave animations as well as the structure of the HTML programming.