The first thing is load time. Your site should load within the first 30 seconds on a 56K modem. Design Pleasing to the eye, good color, limited banners and advertising puts me at ease. If you have followed our sites over the last year and a half, we have had over 5 site designs. The latest is still in progress.
Content Is the site static or is their some actual content.
This is something that we are going to concentrate on as this results in repeat visits. Updating your site is very important. Interactivity Contests, cgi scripts, javascripts can all enhance a site. Macromedia Flash are also very impressive. We are adding a new portal of webmaster resources, with the first being javascript.