You know your business well. Can you describe what you do and who you do it for in a sentence of two? Do you have a good tagline? This belongs on your home page along with options for the most important things you are and do, with prominent links to them. Make it easy for the search engines to find you by making sure your titles and subtitles are tagged with your company name and a succinct description. And make it easy for the visitor to find what they want by having easy navigation and a search box on the home page as well as every other page.

And as much as you may want to, dont put any advertising on your home page. Not even if the major purpose of your site is to be a prosperous successful affiliate. There are plenty of opportunities to sell product in context with content throughout the rest of the site, where it will be more useful to the user.

If youre not a designer, hire one. Just because you can design a web page doesnt mean you should. If you have a clean uncluttered look to the home page, and people can easily understand how to navigate, youre way ahead. If you dont have a logo, have the designer create one for you, and place it professionally, along with any other graphics so the site isnt confusing or busy.

Show some substance right up front. Put some excerpts of good news, hot information or timely articles as teasers on the front page, and continue them to content-rich pages. Even the smallest company can easily can project a professional image in their niche and pave the way for appropriate links and successful affiliate relationships.