What in you opinion, brings you back to a site & why?

Been seeing banner design & template design utilizing various line & texture and objects with nice background masking that quick loading & very appealing. Carbon Fiber I've made several textures, but hard to make it look like I want.

Visual appeal is a must for a good website, but the MOST important thing that will bring visitors back to your site is content, content, content. Be sure you have plenty of content and that you update the site regularly with new things.

sure is...........

Content is most definitely the MAIN reason I'll return to a site, visual appeal helps, but if the menu structure is lacking it annoys me. I don't like it when you can't find what you're looking for.

I agree with lawatusi. Content is the main draw for me. When I am designing a site I try for visual appeal and ease of use but that is because I want to please my customer. If the customer has a lot of good content to put in their site, and a good purpose, then that is a plus for me. But when I am surfing for myself, I look for the sites that offer things I am looking for, whether it is software apps, graphics, sounds, music, or just plain information.

The design, definately. (for a designer like me)

Content, search, and placement.

Yep same here - content all the way. You can have amazing graphics but if there's nothing useful on a site why bother to return to it?

visuals make visitors to return not more than once, but quality content keeps bringing them back again and again.