How the design of your website can make or break it's success

-- FOCUS --
There should be one main purpose to your website, and that is what you want to put fourth as your introduction, and invitation.

Invitation? - Your homepage is the invitation to the viewer to stay and engage with you. You wanted them to come for a reason. Make it clear and easy for them to understand, so they can make a decision based on what they're looking for.

-- DESIGN --
This is where the site design is so crucial. We've all done this, with or without noticing. I'm looking for some information, so I google it, and I get a huge list of possibilities. I click on the one that seems the most likely first, - I'm only going by a brief bit of text at this point - and what I see when i get there either invites me in, or turns me away. There's rarely and in-between here.
There are so many choices. When we get to a site that is cluttered and confusing (most common mistake) we turn away quickly because we know we can find the information in so many other places that we'll go to the place that is designed to feel like they want us to actually have that information.

In the design 'chapter', I'll go over some of the elements that help to get to the visual clarity.

But first, there's the matter of something called "Site Definition". That is the 'defining' - identifying what the main focus of the site should be. If form follows function, and on the web that's the name of the game, then you can't get started until you have the intention clearly set out.