Eight Things (and more) You Can Do to Make Your Site Stand Out.

1. Put testimonials in obvious places on your site.
2. Case Study. A case study shows your ability to solve problems or provide excellent service. Numbers help here...like how much you saved the client annually with your problem solution.
3. Make it very easy for your visitors to contact you. A reader response form at the bottom of Web pages is good Idea.
4. Incorporate your expertise into your design somehow: graphically, functionally, or with content.
5. Know your audience. Target your audience with design and content. Speak their lingo.
6. Keeping your content fresh is Very Important! Having a News section makes you and your site seem bigger.
7. Have a printer-ready map to your location.
8. People get on the net to spend time or save time. Set up your Web site to serve both desires and you will be more likely to capture your visitors interest.
9. Provide something useful. Become a resource. A good list of bookmarks can be useful, or share the bounty of your expertise (e.g. just what are those bugs we're all seeing this year in our gardens and how do we get rid of them?)
10. Provide something fun. Stories about your garden, fun and weird bookmarks, pictures, drawings, etc.
11. Don’t ask too many questions. Just enough to be able to make contact is just right.
12. Definitely use some form of networking application. Build a community, use an affiliate program: Network, somehow. Leverage your Internet contacts to grow your site and your business.
13. Having employees is a simple way of leveraging your time. It's better to get 1% of 100 employee's output than 100% of just your own output. Hire someone to use their expertise on your behalf by building a Web site for you.
14. Don't use a splash page. It's just one more click a visitor has to make to get what they came for.
15. Put what they came for on the first page they encounter. Don't bury your product inside your site.
16. Make it incredibly simple to buy something (if you're selling). Declare shipping charges up front. Get the number of steps it takes to accomplish a transaction down to three. Don't ask your shoppers to fill out long forms beyond the necessary shipping and payment information.
17. Provide volumes of information about the things you are selling. Some people who are interested in a product will read all about it first, then buy it. On the other hand, some people make quick decisions based on trusting your recommendation.
18. It's really about developing relationships. When they acquire what they came to your site to get, then you have a chance to make a contact.
19. ASK your USERS what they want out of your Web site.
20. Fancy graphics aren't worth anything. Simple and fast is best, unless, of course, fancy graphics are an essential part of your message.
21. It takes one to four months to develop traffic to your site, and three to six months to start seeing revenue.
22. An Email newsletter is a great way to get rid of last years inventory. Your regular customers will snap it up.
23. Put a View Cart/Checkout button at the top and bottom of EVERY page in your site.
24. Link from text content to related products on your site.