Branding : Website - Maintenance

The three-click rule or three click rule is an unofficial web design rule concerning the design of website navigation. It suggests that a user of a website should be able to find any information with no more than three mouse clicks. It is based on the belief that users of a site will become frustrated and often leave if they cannot find the information within the three clicks. Although there is little analytical evidence that this is the case, it is a commonly held belief amongst designers that the three click rule is part of a good system of navigation.

How can anyone concentrate on reading what's on your site when there are things flying around the page?  It's like trying to read a newspaper when someone's poking you in the shoulder repeatedly.  Also, visitors who have slow connections may resent that you wasted their time by forcing them to load animations and sound files against their will.  Conventional wisdom is that people will be drawn to an animated ad, but it's actually the opposite:  Readers who are assaulted by blinking ads are more likely to leave the site immediately without clicking on anything, and are far less likely to bookmark the site, return to it, link to it, and recommend it.

Think about what content you have and how it should be organized.  This is at least as important as what your pages look like, so actually spend some time on it.  You do your readers a disservice if they can't easily find what they're looking for if everything is thrown up on your site in a haphazard fashion.