Website Design tips to Plan your website

. Define the structure

Give the customer the information they will be looking for and help them find it easily and quickly. If you offer a large range of products, use a search facility, if your products carry a detailed specification, add a “click for specification” button. Keep the structure and progression as simple and logical as possible.

. Save your Credibility

Few things are more likely to cost you customers which are incorrect information or poorly written or misspelled text on your business website. It will destroy your credibility. Read through all your text carefully and double check all the facts, get someone else to proof read it and run the text through a spell checker after checking your language settings (English – US or UK for example). Then do it all again, twice!

. Check Facts, Spelling and Grammar

Use HTML correctly. Even if you use a WYSIWYG editor, a core knowledge will help you sort out the unexpected problems that will inevitably arise. Try to hand code your site in Notepad. If you can do this, you will be able to locate errors extremely quickly.

. Home Page

Provide a way back to your home page on every single page of your site, via a logo, icon or a simple text link.

. Consistentence

If you're planning a consistent look to your site, do yourself an enormous favour, and build a template. Add temporary 'blah blah' text to cover as many options as possible including, heading(s), paragraphs, text highlights, links etc. Build, then tune your style sheets to display these texts to your satisfaction (or HTML tags if you're not using style sheets). When it's all to your satisfaction, THEN add your content! This will save you a huge amount of time.

. Templated Site

You have built a templated site, added content to 100 pages, and now you want to make a major change. Doh! Don't go through each page finding and changing the offending bit by hand. Search for, and download a 'multifile find and replace utility' from the Net, than make all those changes in an instant.

. White Space
You don't have to fill the whole screen with text and graphics. Use 'white space' effectively, and allow elements to breathe.

Source : http://www.3fn.net/guide/Essential_Web_Site_Design_Tips.html