I hope the new year brings you many opportunities, as well as successes. If your Web site doesn't project a professional and polished image to your visitors, your credibility and that of your products and services will suffer. Before your first HTML code is written, you will need to consider your Web site's navigational structure, color scheme and page layout. Ideally, people shouldn't have to scroll down to see what your site has to offer. You may need to make your graphics smaller, but that's okay.
Smaller graphics mean a quicker download time.
Be sure to check your pages at all the various screen resolutions. Although only a small percentage of users have their monitors set at 640x480, you will want to make sure your site looks good at that resolution. I design my Web pages at 800x600, which is the average resolution. However, more and more users have their computer monitors set at higher resolutions, such as 1024x728. You will see that your pages will look radically different depending on the resolution.