> This subject is fun for me cause I am a web designer by trade.  I build web sites professionally every day, but for now I am going to give you some tips as they are relevant to LAN parties.

> Basics
Build for 800x600 (760x400 actual).  O man I can hear the mail coming in right now.  Gamers run higher rez, gamers are net savvy, bla bla bla.  Well hoss, over 50% of the world is still running 800x600 and judging by the fact that MOST of our traffic comes at that rez and during the middle of the day we can assume a lot of people are looking at our site on a machine other then their game rig.  Consider your people may be viewing your site from work and they have no control of the equipment there....  What if a sponsor comes to visit the site and they are running 800x600?  Will they be impressed or turned off by your site.

I run dual monitors at work, one at 1600x1200 and one at 800x600 so I can see how other people see the web.  I do run 1280x1024 at home but I almost never full screen my browser window.

> What should I have on it
Well what ever you damn well please would be my first response but here are some common ones.

• News: Ok well you know what goes here right?  Right.
• F.A.Q.: What is a LAN party, What will I need to bring, Can I date your sister, What kind of network equipment do you use, Can I bring my own switch or hub, Can I bring a server, Are speakers allowed, Why not my mom says they sound perrrrrty, Can I smoke in the building, Can I consume mass quantities of alcohol and run around in my underwear...ok you get the idea.
• Links: To your sponsors, other LANs, your moms floral shop...???
• Register or Sign UP:  People will not snail mail you a registration.
• Contact: Who can Billy's mom call to make sure you are not going to take his computer from him?
• Downloads: Ahhhhh Duh...
• Legal: V e r y  important.  What has your lawyer suggested?
• Who is Registered: People draw more people!
• Newletter signup:  This is a very powerful tool.  A person might stop by your site once after hearing about it, and unless you can get them on a list or something, you may never get them back to the site!

> What probably should not be on it

• Ok for starters every stupid animated .gif that you have downloaded.  a) they are super annoying, b) they take up valuable file size that could be dedicated to pics of your last event or your sister, ahhhhh I mean sponsors banners, yeah that is what I meant.
• Pictures that are over 50k, and even then there should be only one per page.
• n0rp - an easy way for you to get into mucho hot water is to make pornography available on your site.  I will tell your mom.
• Anything..... A N Y T H I N G  that has to do with, pirating, warez, crackz, etc....
• Pictures, artwork, and / or copyrighted material that you do not have permission to use.  Obviously most game companies are lax cause they want there logo on your site, but how you use it can be all the difference in the world.  Be careful about what you are using.
• And then there is always lies and damn lies.

> To Flash or not to Flash....
For petes sake if you are going to do a flash intro (nothing wrong with that) would you please at least add these two items if nothing else?  A "Sound off" button and a "skip Intro" button.  While your at it, please do at least a simple pre-load if it is large in file size.

> Hosting

> Banners
Standard banners are 468 x 60 and should be no more then around 15k.  The second most common size is the 88 x 31 like we have on the left nav.  Animated .gif's and flash are commonly used for this purpose. 

Be creative, but ultimately if they are banners that you are creating, make sure they serve the intended purpose.  What I mean is, if you are sending a banner to me to put on this site and you want people to go visit your site, make sure it "sells" people on coming to your site.

I can't tell you how many banners I have seen that look ok, but have no call to action.  They just look nice, no message, no hook to draw the viewer in.