If you want your website to perform the way it is intended for your customers, you should pay close attention to the details that matter most. There are many rules you should follow for building a successful website, but we will only be going over 4 big ones.

#1. Don't use a splash page.

When you show up to a website and the first thing you see is: Welcome to_______, or Please click here to enter _______.com, it's time to hit the back button. Why put up a giant stop sign to your site? Obviously the visitor wants to enter your site or they would not be there. Today's visitors have the shortest attention spans of all time. Don't dare them to click away from your website. For some reason back in 1995 this seemed like a good idea, kind of like a doorway to enter a store. The plain and simple fact is that it no longer applies.

#2. Don't use too many banners.

How many of you reading this click on banners anymore? We have been trained over the years to leave them alone. They are like a used car salesman pushing you into clicking them. We don't want to be pushed, we just want some information. The only reason I personally use banners anymore is for dressing up the site. But even then I use them few and far between. The internet is not a brand new thing anymore. People are not going to click on everything that flashes in front of them.

#3. Having proper website navigation.

There is no advantage to making it hard to find your information. I've even been to websites where I found the navigation, but I can't seem to get the cursor into the box before the box disappears. This is an easy mistake to make when building your website. This is just something that get overlooked by the website owner since they are usually more worried about creating the best content. A lot of time they wont even consider their site navigation, let alone try it out first. Multiple drop down menus, in my opinion is a thing of the past. Why not let your visitors see your menus before they click? Your not trying to hide anything. There is one navigation menu we are all too familiar with. The back button of our browser.

#4. No forced music.

This is not an issue that is very common anymore, but I still see it regularly. Why would you force you visitors into listening to your style of music? Chances are, not everyone feels the same joy of listening to your taste in music that you do. Especially if they have the volume turned all the way up from the last video they couldn't hear so good. You will scare your visitors and leave a permanent impression of you website ingrained in their mind. Usually not a good one.

There are plenty more rules to follow also, but this will take care of some of the biggest potential problems. As I said earlier, there are exceptions to these rules. In some cases bending the above guidelines might be necessary. Come take a look at qualityhostingnow.com for many more tips on making a website usable.