lets see what i remember
-easy to read
-a good background, if you do flash or macromedia keep it cool but not overwhelming
-font wise, dont make them to curly or whatever, at least for the body text
-format the text correctly, nothing is more annoying than a neverending paragraph

-easy to navigate
-look at googles homepage vs. yahoo --> google has that clean look to it unlike yahoo's which looks cluttered
-things like sidebars and topbars are always good, maybe one that is the basics with the other one specific to the part of the site

-other stuff
-easy to load, pages that take forever to load=not cool

theres some of the stuff i remember from eighth grade computer class