When designing a web site, it is the responsibility of the web designer to give visitors the best first impression and to make them feel welcome, just as a local store does.  A web site needs to be designed to give visitors the greatest ease of use and should be easy to navigate with clearly marked areas of interest.  Even if you have the greatest product in the world, a poorly designed web site will not convert visitors to sales.
While graphics are important, a good web site design will consist of many important components such as the interface, accessibility, the general layout, and the ease of navigation to desired locations.  A look at your local department or grocery store will show you how extremely important signage and store layout is.  Can you imagine walking into a grocery store and not having signs showing where items are?  Even with these signs, it can still be quite difficult to find a specific item.
As with any great web site design, in addition to quality components to be utilized, there are features that should be avoided in the interest of a great visitor experience.  These items need to be used with caution, sparingly, and only when appropriate.
Text size and fonts – Consider your audience carefully when choosing fonts and text size.  If your site caters to an older crowd, a large and less fancy font will make reading your site more comfortable to your visitors.  Fancy fonts can be especially hard to read.  It is normally better to increase the font size even if it means editing your copy, or perhaps placing more information on a separate page.  If your content can only be read with straining, or if it’s illegible, you will not be able to convert sales.
Popup windows -  Used extensively for advertising, popup windows tend to anger most visitors.  In addition, with the introduction of popup blockers, most will not even be seen.  Also, even if your popup message gets thru the blocker, your visitor can simply close the window down without even reading it.  If you have an important message to share, it will certainly be more advantageous for you to put it on your landing page than to take a chance on it never being seen.
Background music – If you have a web site that promotes a band, a CD, or anything related to music, then background music can be appropriate to play for your visitors.  Use this method with caution, and consider your design carefully.  First, not every page has to have music.  Another good design option would be to play different music appropriate for certain web pages.  Don’t have an important message only included in your background audio since your users may have their speakers turned to low volume, or even off.  Finally, consider that your users may still be on a dial up connection and will probably leave your site if it takes an extremely long time to load your site with the music included.
It is true that you only get one chance to make a first impression.  With careful design practices and considering how your visitors will view and interact with your web site, you can create a memorable experience.