Most websites lose money!  Most sites on the Internet aren’t designed properly including most of the Fortune 500 Websites.

The reason that most websites loose money is not because they don’t have enough technology or the owner didn’t spend enough money. The fact is most companies tend to fall into the trap of thinking that a good site has to cost a lot of money, and it has to have a lot of flashy elements flying around, with eye popping graphics, and all of the other sorts of nonsense.

The fact is people come to your site in search of valuable content and information, not flashy graphics

People don’t come to your site looking for flashy elements or cool sounds they come to your site in search of content that is valuable to them. Flash and fancy graphics are just window dressing to your visitors and often times they tend to keep your visitors from finding what they want.

I can’t count how many times I have seen people absolutely thrilled with a site that has a black background with pink text, just because the site had the information that they were searching for. No, I am not saying that a website with a black background and pink text is a good thing I am trying to make the point that your visitors just want content and information that is of value.

Provide valuable content and you will run circles around your competition

Though content is the most important piece to making your Website successful, you should not ignore having a "good" site design. Good design teamed up with great content will bring your site great success. Good design does not mean that you have to go out and hire a designer and spend thousands of dollars, but you do need to follow these few principles:

• Make every page have a visual hierarchy
   
• Design for conventions that your users are familiar with
   
• Break pages up "chunk" into clearly defined areas
   
• Make clickable items look like clickable items that are clear for your
  visitors
   
• Keep the flash and multimedia to minimum, use sparingly
   
• Make your navigation apparent for your visitors, don't get creative here

By following these design principles alone, you will out run your competitors who have spent thousands of dollars to have fancy multimedia and graphics. You will be on your way to making profits online.