The Standards of Website Design

First, understand this: There are  no "Standards" in website design.

  However: there are some "conventions" that almost have the force of standards.

  The average web surfer has become accustomed to common design elements. Those who are new to the internet are still familiar with magazines and books, and subconsciously expect web pages to follow those design conventions.

  Web designers that ignore these "conventions" do so at the risk of loosing a large percentage of potential customers.
  Remember: A confused or irritated surfer can leave in a microsecond, and most of them do.

  (This section is not about standards in HTML coding, or CSS, or anything like that... it is only about the overall website appearance and usability.)

  Menu on the left. I don't remember the exact numbers, but the overwhelming majority of websites use the left-side column for the main navigational links.
  That is followed by page-top and right-side placement in roughly equal amounts, and distantly by page-bottom placement.

  So the average surfer is expecting to find the main navigation for your website on the left side... if you place it on the top or on the right side it will confuse them for a moment, but if your content is of interest and they aren't too confused they will take the time to familiarize themselves with your navigation and continue to browse.

  No matter what navigation placement you decide to use, make it the same on all of your pages. Don't make your potential customer figure out your navigation scheme more than once.

  Home page as an "Introduction". Visitors can enter your website from any page on your entire website.... but most people expect to find the basic 'introduction' and 'contents' information on the home page.

  Provide a link to your home page from every page of your website, and from the home page provide a link to every section of your website. You don't need to link to every page from the home page, that may be impractical or even impossible.

  "Search This website". People expect to be able to quickly and easily find the information that they want. If your website has more than a dozen or so pages, if you have more than a few products... then you should provide a search function that they can easily find and use.

  There are a few good ones that don't charge for basic service. Personally, I think that FreeFind.com has the best overall free service.
  If you have an AdSense account with Google, you can use their search function like I have on this website, and make a few dollars as well... if you don't yet have an AdSense account, click the button to get started:

  Consistent Layout & Color Scheme. If your visitor clicks a link and goes to a page that looks like it belongs to another website they may get confused or irritated.

  They may even assume that they have left your website and not even bother to read the content to see if they did or not. If you're lucky, they will click 'back' and try again, if you're not they will click 'close' and you'll never see them again.

  "Click Here". The majority of websites still use "link cues" like underlining, with Blue text (and Dark Blue or Purple for a visited link), or the bland 'click here' to designate a hyperlink... so that's what people expect to see.

  If you use a different scheme, be sure that it is still easy to identify as a link and use the same scheme throughout your website. Don't underline very much of the text on your pages - use that for extra 'punch' to help make a point... but do it in such a way as to make it plain that it is not a clickable link.

  Like flashing banners, any departure from the conventional 'link cues' will only distract and confuse your visitors. If you use other standards, like non-underlined text or same-color text for your links, be prepared for a lower conversion rate and fewer page views per visitor.