Good Design - Free of Charge
The single most important thing about your website is not it's functionality or usability, it's not the marketing behind it our the hours your team spent developing the single most important thing about your website is good design. No matter how you slice it if you can't engage your traffic beyond that initial 8 second first impression all the clever bells and whistles in the world won't equate to additional page views and conversions. So I reiterate that good design is vital in achieving what ever your goals and objectives are for the website, but what if you don't have access to a great designer or better yet really don't have the capital to afford one right now? I'd suggest using a pre-designed template; we've been using them for quite some time and they're really a great economic choice for someone on a restricted budget for a couple or reasons. First, you save a few bucks and everyone likes saving some money. Second, you can actually see what your design will look like before the developers even get started; and finally, they're ready to go so usually you can have your site up and running in no time at all.
If your interested there are several great resources out there for some beautiful templates take a look and let us know if we can get one plugged in for you.
FreeCssTemplates.org
Free-Css.com
TemplateWorld.com
Arcsin.se