I am going to cover some basics for a business website to attract customers, make them stay on your site & purchase your product or at least bookmark your site to return to. Every business whether you are a one man show or a large corporate needs an effective website to grow the business, to be credible & to inform and sell- either online or offline. Who would want to buy from a business that does not have a website? To make your website work for you:- Communicate clearly – your visitor will spend about 30 seconds on your homepage. State clearly what your business is about at the top of the screen. Use short sentences in active voice. Speak to your target audience in a language they will understand easily. Keep it simple. Provide the information they need – Users should be able to decide if your product meets their need & should have a reason to do business with you.  ( right widget, right color, credible, you will deliver etc) Offer simple clean consistent page design & clear navigation – Keep the design simple & clean. Lots of white space. Images only relevant & where necessary. Give them the navigation & site structure where they expect. ( have clear horizontal navigation bar on top  – use standard navigation like – Home – About Us – Products – Services – Contact us – Blog etc) Now that the basics are covered let us move on to the content:- Content rules on the web. Visitors will not buy or use things they do not understand. Give information in simple language.  A while ago I wrote an article on how to write for the web – showing how your visitor reads differently on the Internet. Display good photos of your products. Have zoom function if necessary. Don’t post fuzzy small photos. Stick to usability principles. To make money from your website focus on the basic stuff your customer values most.