DO pay attention to both style and content. Having good quality content on your site is imperative as content is what visitors are usually looking for when they view sites and good content is what is needed if u want your customers to come back.
Style will not stand on its own and can't keep visitors coming back but Style's purpose is to attract a visitor's attention and draw him to the content. They come because of the style, they stay ? and come back ? because of the content.
DON'T waste your visitors? time. One common trait of web surfers is that they don't want to waste time. For example don't put flash videos on your website which take longer to load than watch. This will make your visitors annoyed and result in them not coming back.
DON'T commit to an update schedule that you can't follow. If you tell them there's an update every Monday, make sure they'll find new content on Monday. Keeping to a tight schedule will inspire a feeling of loyalty with visitors.
It's a very short list of DOs and DON'Ts, but the tips mentioned above are important and may be crucial in deciding whether your website will stay online for a long time.
