1) Your front page should reflect good marketing principles: unique selling proposition or the marketing positioning that you think you want versus your competition.

2) Survey your customers and ask them if they would like to buy from you on the internet, and what they like or dislike about shopping on the internet. Don't rush into putting a site up'.

3) Think of your web site as your shop front to the world -- what do I or we want to put into it, what should the design look like? Survey your customers on this point, too.

4) Ensure that your company's culture or distinctiveness is communicated through your web site. You may even have to think about what your culture IS.

5) Think through your entire business model and the internet's place in it. Remember, the internet can be used for several things besides e-commerce.

6) Look at what your competition is doing (or not doing) on the internet and learn from it. Most of them violate one or more of these laws.

7) Ensure that your site is easy to load and navigate around --- do it yourself, just to see if it's a site that would be compelling to YOU. Don't leave it to the designers, the systems department, or your marketing department.

8) Don't drop the ball on post-sale service -- make sure goods are easy to return, or if you're selling services, put on a guarantee of satisfaction.

9) Make sure your company has the personnel to handle web inquiries and commerce. Back up your web site with an 800 inbound line. A product or service requires some 'high touch' to go with the 'high tech'.

10) Make sure that your keywords and meta tags are the best they can be - check your keyword rankings on the search engines most appropriate to your product or service.

11) Have expectations for your web site, and measure results against them. (This is easier said than done in many cases.)

12) Integrate the marketing approaches for your site and your physical store front; you may be able to use the two channels to approach different markets.