Ever designed a website before? It's tough. OK, so you made several 100 or 1000 bucks designing your friend or family member's site. That doesn't mean it looks good. By starting with the right tools, you can make a website that stands out from the millions out there, with minimal effort.

First, think about what the site is for. If its an information site, it needs to be easy to read. Do NOT use white text on a black background unless its a very small amount of text. This leads me to my first point. Decide on a background color. What is the main color of your site going to be? Are you going to use an image in the background? Here are some pointers. A white background is clean, minimalist and standard for almost any website. It can also be seen as sterile and indifferent. Black is a good color because it makes everything that is on it stand out while white can wash things out. Black also focuses the visitor's eye on the important part of the page instead of blinding them with white. However it can look too serious and old school if not implemented correctly.

My suggestion? If you want dead simple and almost guaranteed to work, use white. If you want to get a little more snazzy without being fussy, sample a major color out of your logo and make a gradient from color to white for the background. Sometimes I have the darker color fade to a lighter version of that color because it gives an edge to the content block of your website.

After you have that figured out, you'll need to choose what colors your navigation bar will be. (We will discuss site layout later. i.e., where the nav bar should go) The colors should be pale with bolded words on them for them to get that 'pop' and to stand out. If you are working on an e-commerce site you should make the buy button stand out (and as close to the top as possible).

Keep colors on your site to a maximum of 3 if you can, with the header image the exception. Use 2 of the 3 chosen colors on the nav bar for what it looks like normally, and when you hover over it, then use the third color only on things you want to stand out. Let's say you choose royal blue and a pale blue for your 2 main colors, use a nice green or purple (a complementing color) for the 3rd color that would make elements of your site stand out.

There is a lot more to choosing just the right colors for your website, but remember, if your side doesn't convert visitors to customers, it doesn't matter what it looks like if its not making money, and if you SEO isn't good, then you really won't have to worry about it since no one will be seeing your site! Design is important, but remember if you have the right product at the right price, design can be sacrificed and you can afford to pay a professional to develop a great looking website for its intended use.