Color Scheme

Choose a color scheme that you want to project a certain image.

For example, dark colors tend to project a more serious or business-like representation.

Light colors generally are associated with easy-to-read text.

Opposing colors like orange and blue can be combined to create focal points of interest.  I recommend using a color wheel or a template of web-safe palettes.

Do a search on your favorite search engine and save the ones you like in your favorites.

Resolution

In general, most people use 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 resolution.  So when you're designing your website, use the resolution one lower than the current trend.

That way, if people use 1024 x 768, they will have no problem viewing a page created in 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768.

Spacing

Visualize the page broken up into blocks of text, graphics or white space.  Use tables or paragraphs to position your content.

Placeholders

Many websites incorporate a banner at the top containing the name of the company plus a logo.   Along the left and/or right side(s) a list of links can be included.

Or you can put the links below the banner.  The reason for doing this is that it is easier to navigate if the user is reading somewhere in the middle of the page.

You can also put a copyright notice at the bottom of every page.  Some websites have a link to the Webmaster below or near the copyright section aswell.

Scale

Headings need to be one or two sizes larger text than the main body text.  Graphics generally need to be proportional to the main body of text, so that while they stand out, the text is not ignored entirely.

A guideline could be that if you have two graphics on the page, and they are of equal importance, then they will look better if they are the same size.

My own preference would be that you save half the page or less for graphics, then divide that amount of space up by the number of graphics.

For example, if the page has 800 x 600 resolution, you keep 300 pixels (height) for text and 300 pixels (height) for graphics.

If you don't need that much for one or the other, decide which is more important for the viewer to focus on, the graphics or the text.

Or make the text one font size bigger.   Experiment until you find the right combination.

Graphics

Use your favorite graphics application to create your web Images, or have them custom-designed by a third party.

Web graphics are best displayed if they are saved in the JPEG or GIF format.

JPEG is best for photographic Images whereas GIF is best for lower resolution Images.

If you are using many Images on one page, try to make them all the same size in relation to each other, unless one or more has to stand out.