Even if your goal is to sell something, focus on offering some valuable information to your prospective customers. Submit articles and press releases to online AND traditional newsletters and magazines at least once a month. Visit NewsGroups as often as you submit press releases. Post some helpful information and you may learn a thing or two in the process. Keep the amount of graphics on your web pages to a minimum.
Web surfers seem to be a very impatient lot.
Text loads much faster than gifs and jpegs. Don't let a single idea slip away. Keep a running list. Take a few hours every week to just surf the web. Focus on learning something new each time.