The best Web sites are those that serve the purpose of their owners. For some businesses, a Web site provides the backbone of the company's retail operation. For many other companies, the site offers an adjunct source of sales revenue along with their brick-and-mortar operations. Some businesses use...

You don't have to be a master programmer or have a computer science background to build great-looking Web pages. In fact, the most important consideration is your users. If you can build Web pages that are attractive, easy to navigate and provide value, your users will return again and again...

When your business is ready to make its initial foray onto the Internet in the form of a business Web site, your first thought may be, "Wouldn't it be cheaper to just hire the kid down the block to build my Web site?"

Does your Web site keep people captivated, or does it send them fleeing as soon as they get to your home page? Do you offend your visitors with the following annoyances?

Simply cruise the Web — especially areas with lots of personal pages, like the GeoCities site or AOL's Hometown area — and you can find many examples of badly designed pages. But what is it that makes these pages bad?