♦ I like reading things that are interesting, or at least the person writing about them finds them interesting. I won't want to read a blog that is just updates about updating the blog, or posts whining that not enough people are reading it. Is your writing about something interesting? (That is subjective). Does what you've written capture the imagination of the reader and are you the writer really into what you're writing about? Online journals describing your life are fine, but I probably won't end up reading them. A little bit of writing skills won't go amiss (Gaah, english class brings my mark down).
Try to keep a consistent theme and font throughout the entire website. (Even if you have the same format but different color schemes on each page it could still look nice). Keep the navigation links on the same part of the page (along the side, or at the top. Whatever just make it consistent). It makes it easier.
Try not to put too many huge pictures! We people surfing through cyberspace have short attention spans, and don't like to wait for pictures to come up on the screen. You can put a smaller version of the pictures you want, or warn the person that the pictures might take a while to load.
U sHoUlDnT tYpE liKe diS wiT dA wEiRd CaPiTaLs AnD dA aNnOying SpElLiNgS aNd StUpId MiStAkEzZ. They are annoying. Unless you're writing a caption for a Lolcat. Or if English isn't your first language.
Javascript is really nice if it's used sparingly. If everything is flashing and moving and there's this big thing that follows the mouse around over the neon green background with yellow writing, it's kind of distracting. It also goes really slowly on some computers.
Interactive things are a bonus. Comments seem to be the best, but a guestbook or tag board does nicely as well. Places like livejournal, wordpress and blogger have the option for comments (but you can't customize the layout very much). There's also a pretty simple comments thing haloscan. Or at least a guestbook (efreeguestbooks, dreambook,...)
Advertisements are okay in small quantities. Free hosts such as geocities had ads but I don't think they do anymore, but if you can't avoid it just make sure they don't pop up, talk to you, or flash brightly in your face. Some people make money from their websites, which is impressive.
Obviously it's better if your site is about something completely original, and you find your own little niche. Good luck finding that. But your site can still be successful (ie people read it, and you read theirs) if it has things you're interested in and doesn't shout out the message "Read me!" to the world. (Subtlety is key).
I like it when your layout is consistent. (I may not compliment you on it, because it's one of those things you only notice if they're wrong.) If you have a lot of pages of content and don't want to change the html on every single page whenever you update a link, then I suggest you use php. Then you can have a "header" and "footer" page that you can edit, and then when you upload that it will change the top and bottom of every page.
How frequently do you update? I update far too much, but I think once a week is the longest you should go if you want people to keep coming back. If you have an option for RSS (Don't know what RSS is? Then google it. I couldn't explain it to you because I'm a little fuzzy on it too.)