the secrets are good color combination, fonts, arrangements and content. Also you should consider speed in designing your website. Too much graphics will slow down the downloading process.
Your design has to be nice. As Philvault has said, don't use too much graphics. There are lots of tutorials on how to make professional-looking templates on the internet. You can post a link to your site in some forums and people will review it and give advise on what to change. About your content, it has to be original and provide your visitors what they're searching in your site.
Having free content on our site is a good way to entice people in and also keep them. There are many websites that will give you free games, articles, ebooks, etc. for your site. You can also write your own articles, or make other free content. But don't just make your site look like a dump of all the free stuff that you could find - give it a professional design that is easy on the eyes.
Try to do work in Ready Made Templates! By working on it you can get smart idea about design and the latest demands of web designing as well
Another important thing is content of your website. You can have super beautiful website but if it's empty or only few not very interesting articles, people won't stay. And also you should update your website as often as possible.
1. Simplicity 2. Central layout 3. Fewer columns 4. Separate top section 5. Solid areas of screen real-estate 6. Simple nav 7. Bold logos 8. Bigger text 9. Bold text introductions 10. Strong colours 11. Rich surfaces 12. Gradients 13. Reflections 14. Cute icons 15. Star flashes