1. Make a good first impression. As a designer, there is one thing I know that is paramount to any successful web site – that is first impression. No matter what you think, you are influenced by your first impression. If you don't take that into account, you're just shooting in the dark.

2. Match your Web site to your kind of business. Design with your audience in mind by designing the site to reflect its content. Most people wouldn't find MTV's style all that reassuring for a site devoted to healthcare.

3. Think about the psychology of colors. Red might not be the best choice of colors for an investment group, given that color's connotation of red ink. Black evokes feelings of prestige; yellow evokes warmth, bright orange sprightliness, to name just a few.

4. Don't use trendy fonts. What is cool and hip today will be a laughing memory before you know it. Unless you want to spend time re-designing your site every year or so, play it safe and stick with the standard sets of fonts. This advice also applies to the overall style of the site.

5. See the visual hierarchy of your Web site. It all starts from the whole, and then we work our way in. By that I mean, we first see aesthetics on a Web site, and those aesthetics – when properly used – direct our attention to the message. Keep in mind, the amount of "visual bling" should be pertinent to the content of the site. A Web site for retail clothing will be a lot more colorful and arty than a web site for computer repair, for instance.

Take a walk down the cereal aisle at the grocery store, and you'll see what I mean. Each box is designed to grab your attention and draw your eye to the next important selling point, which means that you don't see the nutritional information front and center. Visually, it's the last thing your eye is drawn to. Now take a look at your newspaper: Content is king because that's what we want from a newspaper. A few photos break up the type and support the stories. If there are other images, they are usually in the form of information graphics, such as charts and graphs.

6. Use columns, just like your newspaper does. Columns have been used for centuries to break up large expanses of type, and for good reason. Any line more than 68 characters wide tends to become difficult to read. One thing that drives me crazy is to see wall-to-wall text with no visual rest. Columns allow that.

* * *

Making a good impression on your customers with a well-designed Web site will pay you back many times over for the money you spend to hire a graphics designer. I encourage you to really look at your Web site through your customers' eyes, whether you already have a site or are thinking about how to put one together. After all, you're a customer, too, and you instinctively know what works when you visit other businesses' web sites.