Web Design Guidelines

Before building your site, ask yourself: What is your objective? Acquire new customers? Advertise new products? Engage with existing customers? Create your site with these goals in mind.
Content is king. Don’t let flashy features and visual noise distract users from what’s really important: your message.
Writing for the Web: Keep it brief. Users don’t read websites like they read books; they skim. Make sure you surface important information clearly so that users can get what they need quickly and easily.
Create a consistent look and feel. Your website represents your brand. It should look consistent throughout and accurately represent the brand you want to portray.
Simplicity is a virtue. Many of the themes we created are simple for a reason: they let your content shine through.
Don’t make your user think any more than he has to. If a user can’t find out what he or she is looking for right away, there’s a high probability he or she will navigate away from your site and never return. Ask yourself: if I were a potential customer coming to this website, what would be the most important information to me?
Test, test, test. Ask your friends, family, and customers to look at and use your website. The insights and feedback you get might surprise you.

Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
Not all users scroll to the bottom of a page, so consider putting your most important content high up on the page where it can be immediately seen.