Logos are not easy to design. But they are something that needs a lot of attention and time as it is a very important part of any website.

Your Logo is Your Face
The visitors form an impression about your site by looking at your logo. A good logo is very essential factor behind how the visitors to your site would perceive your site. They can produce both recognition as well as revulsion. A bad logo is equivalent to a face that cannot be trusted.

Keep Pictures Simple
If you make use of an image in your logo, restrict it to only one that too in a simple shape. Keep it simple with only a few colors, in order to give a good impact.

Typography is Important
The most important part of a logo is not pictures or colors, it is typography, that is, the font. But the fonts that come along with windows have become very common. A logo made with the use of Times New Roman or Arial font will not be appreciated by the visitors.

There are many new and innovative fonts which can be downloaded from sites like fonts.com. Services such as WhatTheFont identifies a font from a scanned page. It is true that the use of the commercial fonts will be expensive but it will definitely bring the desired output.

Avoid Cliches
One of the most important thing is to avoid cliche logos. Some of these cliche types are:

Decade-linked logos: Take proper care not to make you logo look as if it belongs to the '60s, '70s or '80s period. This would obviously be a cliche.

Spirals: One of the most common thing is to put spirals in logos. Though Spirals look appealing but they are simply too common in a logo design.

Animals: Placing an animal in your logo looks good but is again quite common.

Faces made from letters: These are both common as well as difficult to make.

Letters making punctuation: This one is even worse than the faces.

Swooshes: Swooshes are something that are now laughed at. It is a curved line that runs through your logo.