First, have a good color is important. You don't want people say "Ow!!! My eyes!!! where's the X button????" So try not to use colors like light green, yellow.

Second, have some content. Will you like a site just with a title? Updated it AT LEAST once a month.

Third, try not to put "too much" image on the homepage. Otherwise, if they come from a search engion, they will probley want to find something that they want. If that takes too long, they'll leave.

Fourth, having a portal is good if you have a forum. If you are using something like ip board, active the portal. If you are using phpbb, you may want to forgot about this..

great advice haha(: also, making sure the page looks good on both internet explorer & firefox is important, ive gone to sites [&me myself have had layouts] where when i look at them on internet explorer feel like crying(: haha.. also fast loadings, & easy to find navigation

hahaa im working on the too much image thing(:

http://chantellepaige.org

think im doing agood job? haha be honest

If you want a good site, so is a CMS system a good choice! try a system called: PHP-fusion, there is many infusions and stuff like that. If you want to see a site there a build in php-fusion tjeck this site: www.bestsite.dk .