For starters, it's good that you got a site that's almost not attached to some third party host such as Geocities or Yahoo. I see the banner there so it's not completely yours but not completely theirs either and visitors always like as few pop-ups as possible. The background, while all very busy and exciting, is way too much on the eyes and it just, well, it needs to go is what it needs to do. Obviously, the links need to have items under them and without content, the site is no better than a book with blank pages and well, you never heard anyone say "I found a really good read inside an empty notebook" because well, there's nothing to read and thereby comment on. Another thing, keep in mind that many people still have old and un-updated browsers or weird settings where they cannot see frames, and so, they're only getting half the site, make sure to have either a link to a frameless version of the site or just rid of them completely. Audio or visual downloads are always a bonus, but don't force people who don't have fast internet or music of their own playing in the background by having a video or song set to autoplay because it's annoying and terribly frustrating. If you really want to get in tune with web design, you can take up learning HTML and Java to have a little fun. I know that with Java, you can set up your own chat room as an applet right there on your site. Image editor, there is simply nothing better than Photoshop, and of course, the newer, the better (I believe the newest is 7.0). As far as general content, make sure each link has information that stays on topic with what the link was to. This not only means make sure the links go to where they are supposed to, but make sure you don't start one topic and ramble off into the next, keep it straight. At the bottom of each and every page, it's nice to have a link to take the user back to the front page in case they want to click on some other link and don't want to press the Back button on their browser window. Also, and this is very important, make sure that if you link to someone else's picture or their site, make sure you have their permission because at the least, you'll know the link won't go dead on you. On that note, keep constant check making sure all links, threads, images, etc. work, all the time. Yes, even in the middle of the night. Now for the motivational part.... Internet-oriented magazines and books have said over and over that 95% of the internet is garbage, try and see if you can make your site qualify in the other 5%.