We cannot emphasise enough that the usability of your website directly determines the likelihood of a first time visitor becoming a repeat visitor. A few usability tips:

• Visitors will wait no longer than 10 seconds for web pages to load.
• Language used should be the language of your target audience.
• Make your website work like every other website they have visited.
• Strike a balance between page independence and branding. Remember your visitors are very likely to enter your website for the firs time via a different page than the homepage.
• Only use images that are supported by text (don’t just pop images in there to “fill gaps”).
• Drop down menus may be great for SEO but is the usability trade-off worth it.
• Don’t have non descriptive links. i.e. links that say “click me”. Let visitors make their own mind up about whether they choose to follow a link.