The design of your home page is most crucial to make a good impression and get off to a good start. Design your home page that explains what your business is and how will it help your customers. Try to fit in all the information you want to show to your customers on the home page itself.
Good links are the mainstay of any website. If there are no proper links people will lose patience and wont stay for long.
The saying goes like this "CONTENT IS THE KING". So for any website to look good and rank high in the search engines, a good and clear content is the most important factor.
Good content means usage of maximum keywords that goes well without a change in the context of the whole text.
HTML validators are the most powerful and easy way to make sure that your website looks the same in all the browsers.
It is important to have a site map in your website. If your readers don't know the way to navigate your site and to go around, the chances of them trying is very less and they will just leave.