what does a successful site look like?

I’ve read a book about e-commerce. In this book, it taught about how to make a successful site that reflects a successful company.

Actually customers are coming to your site to get information or to purchase a product. They are not interested in the aesthetics of your site. You still need to be interested in the look of your site, since it is your company online. Branding is the visual imagery you apply to your logo, brochures, products and packaging. Branding visually defines you. Your website should reflect your current branding. McDonald’s brand is the golden arches, Coca Cola’s brand is the white swirl on the red background. You don’t need to read the label to know that a product came from McDonald’s or Coca Cola; all you need to see is the brand image. To create a successful branding campaign, you need to apply your brand (visual image) to all visual aspects of your products, including your website. To create a successful website, use your branding images as the basis for your web design.

Spend the time up front laying out your site for easy navigation. A poorly laid out site will confuse visitors. If it takes visitors more than 3 clicks to get information they need, or if it takes a page longer than 20 seconds to download, the visitors is likely to leave your site. Currently, most successful sites are using generation-three layout, which includes top and side navigation bars to simplify information access. This way, the visitors can easily access subtopics from the side bar navigation and quickly move major subjects via the top navigation.

Here are some useful links for a web style guide, http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/contents.html