When it comes to your website, extra care should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its function. Here are five important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website works well.

1. Never use splash pages
   Splash pages or splash screens are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with text like "welcome" or "enter here". In fact, they are just that -- pretty vases without real purpose. Don't let your visitors have an excuse to click on the "back" button! Give them the value of your website up front with no splash page.
2. Do not use excessive banner advertisements
   Even the least net savvy people have taught themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website space. Instead, give more meaningful content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.
3. Have a clean, clear and simple navigation
   You must provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young kid will know how to use it. Try not to use complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus, if possible. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they will leave your site.
4. Have a clear indication of where the user is
   When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your website, you will want to make sure they know which area of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any part of the site easily.  Do not confuse your visitors because confusion means "leave the site"!
5. Avoid using audio on your site
   If your visitor is going to stay longer at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they're not disturbed by some audio looping on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it -- volume or muting controls would work fine.