Is site design as important as the content?

[peria1949]

Hello everyone,
It is said that unique content is king but I feel that the site design also plays an important role because it is what attracts the viewer in the first place.It adds respectability to the content and adds value to it.A well written content is like a tasty dish served in a well decorated restaurant with nice ambiance which is also as important as the taste of the dish.Good content and site design complement each other to make a site to become successful.I would like to know the place to go for high quality but low cost site design.Can anybody throw some light on this?
peria1949

[hooperman]

It is said that unique content is king but I feel that the site design also plays an important role because it is what attracts the viewer in the first place.

I'd have to disagree with you there. I don't care about the design of a site unless it is really bad. The information on the site or service that the site provides are all that I usually want.

Look at Wikipedia. Very basic design, but very popular site.

I would like to know the place to go for high quality but low cost site design.

What kind of site do you have?

[peria1949]

Hi Hooperman,
My experience is that old fashioned two column websites are rejected by affiliate networks for the simple reason that the site design is not appealing enough for the visitors to view.This is true especially of shareasale network.
peria1949

[hooperman]

My experience is that old fashioned two column websites are rejected by affiliate networks for the simple reason that the site design is not appealing enough for the visitors to view.This is true especially of shareasale network.

How did you get around that problem?

Given how easy it is to set a site up with Wordpress, and all the nice looking free themes available, I would have thought that most people aren't going to face this problem. If they don't want to use WP, there are many free CSS templates they can use too.

As a visitor I don't particularly care about the design of a site (as long as I can navigate it easily), but as a publisher I know that it's easy to make your site look good for those it matters to.

What do you now do to get a nice design for your sites peria1949?

[peria1949]

Hi Hoopereman,
I overcame the shareasale problem easily.. by dropping the idea.As far as WP is concerned,you are right.But I can not switchover now as the process is tedious and cumbersome.
My problem is that I have lost the passion for my website www.myweightlossexperiment.com and want to sell it.I filled it with unique content after studying lot many authoritative books on the subject.After 20 months and 107 pages later I find the adsense and affiliate sales agonizingly slow.In the mean time I have lost the passion for the site which was the driving force earlier.I have fleeting thoughts ...may be with attractive site design things might have been better.
peria1949

[hooperman]

The design doesn't look too bad to me. The Adsense looks OK too. How much traffic are you getting to this site?

[Clinton]

I find the .... affiliate sales agonizingly slow.

Some marketers would say it's not so much about how pretty your site is but on where you place the key elements, how you use your hot spots, how you push visitors into your sales "funnel" and the persuasiveness of the copy you use to convert them. Many of these marketers achieve the success they do sadly not because of the quality of their content but in spite of it.

With Adsense, isn't it the bad designs that get the highest clickthroughs?

[Andy]

What is more important?

Let's perform a virtual "test". Put up 2 pages. One with a great design and no content. The other with no design and any content. Which one will convert better?

Okay, so I got a bit dramatic but if you HAVE to have one or the other, I'd have to say content. Does this mean design is not important? Absolutely not. But different visitors have different needs thus it is better to test all sorts of ideas, but never without content.

By the way, in regards to a two-column site - I have spent a great deal of time in the past couple of days here. It seems these folks might disagree with you. My advice is the same as always - test your ideas.

Andy

P.S. Clinton, there are certainly markets where people actually prefer ugly to pretty - or at least they seem happy enough with their returns to leave things as is.

[aaarrrggghhh]

Hi peria1949,

Site design can play an important role but I find it depends on your niche and what the goal of your site is to accomplish.

For sites that I do for law firms and medical entities, design is very important, branding is very important, etc.

If you are looking to just monetize your site from Adsense, then design is not the emphasis. Highly optimized, unique content and layout will then serve you best.

The only way to convert Adsense sites is with lots of traffic sent to a highly optimized site for your relevant Adsense ads.

In quickly looking at your site, the design is fine, your adsense placement is not, at least not from my experience.

The first thing I want to click is the EzineArticles banner...is this what you want accomplished? I don't think it is as I don't think it speaks to your visitors...if they are looking for ways to lose weight, I think this would immediately confuse them.

Testing will only truly reveal what will work best but here are a few quick suggestions that should at least increase your click through rate if you are looking to increase your Adsense earnings.

1) If possible, remove the ezinearticles banner OR at least move it to the bottom of your left sidebar. Your visitors have no interest in knowing about ezinearticles status...this does not speak to the 'solution' of their problems and if anything will just confuse them.

2) Move the search box into the left menu and place Adsense LINK TEXT menu either above or below.

3) Move the subscriptions box below the additional Adsense LINK TEXT.

4) Place your 300x250 adsense box right under the Title of every article, text links only, do not wrap the adsense block, allow it to stand alone.

5) Place another adsense ad unit at the bottom of the post, either another 300x250 or a 486x60 banner, text links only.

For this type of site, you really need to watch your stats and identify and know your money pages. Then, you can optimize and add to those pages even more and build up your backlinks to those pages for even more targeted traffic and ads.

These are just some quick thoughts for you. I am sure you will receive from some even more great help from more advanced users here so just keep trying...testing, etc. and don't be afraid to change things...but change 1 thing, watch for any changes, if it's positive, change 1 more thing, etc. then you will know whether that change was positive or negative.

HTH, Leah

[peria1949]

Thanks everyone for allotting your precious time to reply.I thank especially aaarrrggghhh for detailed reply.I have already implemented your suggestion of moving the ezine article banner to the bottom.Thanks all.
peria1949