lets keep the website layout simple as most of the popular websites have simple layout for their sites and also let the all the important things like the content not extend where the user has to scroll up or down. Make the web design London navigation user friendly.
Adding to the above, it is better to avoid using huge sized flash animations to avoid page loading problems. Also put appropriate tags on the images. It is all about content and not the matter of using catchy images.
Update your site regularly. when visitors come to your site, they look information about you. if they like your site they will come back again. and when they come back they will be looking for more information. if you have something new for them, that may not come back. give them what they want & add more information regularly or update site..
Web Site Should Have Nice design , can give some javascript functionality which will easy to use add some ajax functionality
Avoid the images or flash items, This is good to use the light color as compare to dark one (however this is depend on design).
Yes I agree - avoid flash sites - take too long to load and the search engines are not interested in how pretty a site is but on the content and value to it's readers. I suggest using blogs if you want to get ranked the quickest and also make sure you have a way of capturing people's details, ie optin box with something of value based on your niche. Best wishes Christine