Steps to a successful site building:
(Brief outline)

1. This is always the first thing to start with and that 
is knowledge! If you do not know enough to feel comfortable 
building a new site style, take a bit of time first and 
do some research. Ask questions in the chats and on the 
boards and learn enough to at least feel that you have a 
good basic knowledge of your project before starting it.

2. What type of site will this be? 
Free site, AVS site, Toplist site, Doorway page, Traffic 
filter(hub page), tgp page and so on.

3. What is the purpose of the site?
Will this be for direct sales to a sponsor, upsells to an 
AVS, a traffic generation site, a filter for present traffic, 
a surfer trap and so on.

4. Review effectiveness of MAIN purpose of the site. Each 
site should generally focus on one thing (as mentioned 
above) and although it can be a good idea to cross promote 
other things, you still need to be sure the main focus of 
the site remains constant.

5. Get input on the site before submitting it anywhere! 
Having another "set of eyes" take a look can prevent 
many embarrassing and costly mistakes.

6. Analyze results of the site periodically. While this 
may not be a daily thing, by reviewing the stats of the 
site and it's performance once a week for example, it 
can help you not only in the tweaking of that site but 
also give direction on future site builds.