The key to effective web site design is good planning. Without planning , you will end up with chaos. Once you have a design plan. This applies equally to new and existing web sites.
1. First main step is layout with out layout you can’t prepare any site. Because you know who to design your website, you can easily prepare a splendid site.
2. Second Step is navigation .Good Navigation is also a very important. Once you've created your plan, you can create logical navigational links. These Navigation links doesn’t confuse your site visitors. If you’ve a too much links you can define these links with groups also.
3. Third Step is nature of your site, its content, its theme should be very clear and user friendly.
4. Fourth Step is decide which language you want PHP,ASP etc .But In these days trend is PHP.PHP is a scripting language .Mostly companies, Organizations use only PHP with SQL .PHP is easy to use also. But I forgot to give you a good news, You know In these days new-new templates and pre-set designs are available on net, You can use any template using open source Joomla ; Joomla is the most popular open source .But Now New Open Source Launched name is Smarty. Joomla and Smarty both are static and Zencart is dynamic open source With Zencart you can create shopping cart site. In Open Source every thing would be prepared but you’ve to do some changes. And Your site will be prepared with in few days. It’s very simple to use smarty…read some for tips before starting any work.
5. Your background color should be very clear and very decent. So visitors can read cautiously.
6. If you website is more than 15 pages, it is useful to have a site map or a “Search” feature to ensure your visitors can easily find what they’re looking for.
7. Make sure your load time should be less. Flashes, Graphics make your site attractive but they hugely increase your file size.
8. Your Screen resolution should be perfect. Means your content should be brief and understandable .Because nobody has a too much time to read you content and they will close the browser window. So make the content unique and explained everything briefly.
9. Make sure your code and design is scalable. And test your site in all screen sizes and platforms.
10. Make sure you check your site for Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox ,Opera,Netscape Navigator .