We have read a lot of online advice about how to design yourself a sparkly brand new website and some of the advice is better than others.

Other than taking advice from us (often provided for free because we're nice like that), the next best bet is to consider reading the following articles.

1. Design Council - Step-by-step Guide to Website Design

If anyone knows design it's the guys at the Design Council.  They have created a free guide to explain how you can improve your business with a great website. It provides advice on; working out what your business needs, deciding how your new website will operate and keeping the project on time and on budget.

2. Business Link - Best Practice in Web Design

This article covers the following topics; Planning your site, technical website design issues, Disability Discrimination act accessibility issues, designing the site, and advice about site navigation and structure.

3. Google - Webmaster Guidelines

Google is the market leading search engine in most international markets.  It has a set of guidelines for companies and individuals designing websites and importantly issues  "Quality Guidelines," which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index.  If your website designer is unaware of the existence of these guidelines then find someone else!

If you are designing your very first website, you may also find this glossary of website design terms useful.

Glossary of website design terminology