Justin has a decent domain name. He pays Sally to write targeted content and design a template fitting for the overall theme. He then targets appropriate advertising using an affiliate program. When the site is finished, he sits back to watch the money roll in.

A few months later, Justin is feeling very discouraged. His site visitors aren't converting into sales. He decides to have Sally redesign the template. "I want the bells and whistles: Web 2.0 design, blog, flash and forums".

Six months later, Justin’s site receives very little traffic and sales. Frustrated, he sales his domain and moves on to the next project.

I see the above scenario quite a bit in the domain industry. If you are looking to redesign your website the graphical aspects and whistles should be last on your list.

Instead, look for:

Missing Information

Don’t expect a visitor to know that he/she can gain access to tools and services if they sign up with your website. I have a “User Menu” located at the top left corner of my blog. This tells my visitors two things: you can register for the blog and there are services after signup.

Usability and Design Structure

The structure of the design itself is 10x more important than pretty colors. In the top left area, I have my login box. On the top right area is my site links.

How is your information organized? The most important and relevant information should be shown first. You only have a few seconds to keep your visitor’s attention. You don’t want to ruin that by boring them to death.

Buried Information

If your website sells a unique product or service or you have information not typically covered, that should be highlighted on the front page. It shouldn’t take multiple clicks for your visitor to find out why your site is worth reading.

Upselling

I saved the best for last. The most common typical mistake domainers make when developing websites is either a poor upsell area or lack thereof. I’m not a big GoDaddy fan but TDnam.com is a good example of this. The images next to their logo is the upsell area. Your upsell area should highlight the best of your products (bestsellers, discounts, sales, new products, best articles, top artists, whatever) and be in a “high eyeball” area. A “high eyeball” area for upselling is the top and middle of a page as illustrated below in a re-colored version of a Google Adsense image:

In conclusion, the best way to not make Justin’s mistake is to follow these tips from the initial point of development.