It has been shown that black text on a white background is the best way to go. Go with GIF format. Use JPEG only when you have good quality and colorful pictures you want to show off. Black and white pics and patterns are better as GIF's. Backgrounds Keep your backgrounds simple because your background will load after your text does, which means viewers will be looking at a white background until your background loads.
Fancy backgrounds have some people waiting for a long time.
Frames Frames look very good and make web sites easy to navigate, but try avoiding making your homepage using frames. You will encounter problems with some search engines when registering your web site with them. You do want some pictures on your web site if you are selling a product. Pictures can show your customers the product that you want them to buy. Pictures are truly worth a thousand words on the web.