Comments on: Content Vs. Design

By: eric

eric — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:14:33 +0000

I give importance to the content first, as it should be very good and unique for attracting any visitor. On the contraty, you need to make a good design for generating any traffic to your content.

By: dan

dan — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:36:50 +0000

Yes, the design is very addicting! I thought it was more appealing to the eye because nowadays it seems like no one wants to read anymore.

By: chandan

chandan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:30:45 +0000

Your both point content and design most important for traffic. May be you write great content, but if your blog design is not attractive then visitor will leave at once. So I think one better blog means better content and better design.

By: Web Dizajn

Web Dizajn — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:33:04 +0000

Marcus Hochstadt,

Most part of visitors comes to my web site via google. If my web pages wouldn’t be optimized and focused around keyword phrase, in other words title meta tag and heading 1 tag are the theme of my web pages.

So quality, focused, informational, interesting, useful, provocative and well written content around one theme gets my visitors to my web pages. But professional web design and informational architecture also gets visitors.

Web design is not only fancy graphics, it consists of informational architecture. If informational architecture within web design is poor, content also becomes poor and with little less quality.

Wrong, google algo is far more complex and it’s algo does care much about web design especially informational architecture.

If you would pay much more attention to web design and informational architecture your traffic would increased, for sure no doubt.

Content is king but web design is queen. Content is far more easily digestible with great web design.

By: Dhir

Dhir — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:02:06 +0000

Marcus,

Yes, I agree with you becuase we all know that Content is King. But Design is also important to catch the visitors attension when they visited first time your blog or website. A quality informative content+good design is success formula for any website.

By: Johns

Johns — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:40:18 +0000

Yes, content is king, and there is no argument about that.
The huge sums of money people spend (or waste, as one may see it) in making fancy website designs would be more usefully spent in premium content creation.
Thanks for the insight.

By: Pocketbook Promotions: The Blog

Pocketbook Promotions: The Blog — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:27:07 +0000

I could not agree more. Content is trump over layout. But the two should be definatly be opitmized together for maximum recurrence. There are also some other factors that deserve to be mentioned when addressing recurrence vistitors. Heres one of many examples id like to throw out there: Networking & Communications.

This is just one example but there are dozens of other factors beyond content and layout, but networking and communications is a big MUST for recurring visitors. Communications could include adding a subscription option to your blog. This again ties in with “content”:the trump. If your content is great, your readers will subcribe to it with one of many subscription plugins for wordpress. Networking the counterpart to that category could include social media networking sites like twitter, facebook, myspace, and youtube. Meeting like-minded people on social platforms like those is a must in developing long lasting friendships and relationships. These “buddies” you make are sure to visit your blog often if infact they are like minded people. Networking and Comunications is just scratching the surface but there are many facets to consider when gaining trusted and recurring visitors to your blog.

I enjoyed your post, and i hope you enjoy my feedback.

Cheers,
-Jonny CEO Pocketbook Promotions & author of Pocketbook Promotions: The Blog.

By: Thai

Thai — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:14:29 +0000

I don’t think it’s design vs. content. It’s to give the visitor want he/she wants to achieve when visiting a website.

By: Kim

Kim — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 02:05:13 +0000

We believe design and content are both critical to a good website and both can, and should, exist.

By: Anunturi Imobiliare

Anunturi Imobiliare — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:30:52 +0000

I agree with your post, good content is the way to go. But without a good design you’re left with a high bounce rate. Usually visitors respond well to a clean, attractive designs.

By: Seth

Seth — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:23:09 +0000

Content is always critical to the success of the site. No one likes brochure websites anymore.

One thing I thought of, however, is that you want to be careful in getting free themes and templates. Most of them are not developed to perfection. This is important now because Google seems to care how well your site performs (we’ve run a few tests to suggest that all things being equal, the faster site wins in the results).

Great post!

By: Mark Nagurski

Mark Nagurski — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:29:44 +0000

Design is certainly relevant as Logen mentions above – good content should help lay a path for the visitor to follow.

Having said that content is what brings people back. People search for information or entertainment – both come in the form of content.

The content should be easy to access and well-presented but if the content is poor no amount of great design can make up for it. Imagine visiting a beautifully laid out blog that hasn’t been updated in six months; what are the chances that you’ll hit the subscribe button?

Great content can however, overcome poor or uninspiring design.

By: Logen

Logen — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:43:35 +0000

While content is king, good design will draw visitors to the relevant parts of the site. I mean, if a site has good content and yet its font was too small or its paragraphs were too cluttered, I’d leave the site within seconds.

If the content was extremely superb, I’d subscribe to the RSS feeds instead.

By: Dan Henderson

Dan Henderson — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:41:04 +0000

On all my sites content comes first, then I get a designer to create a template and then use PHP includes to include the template throughout the site.

By: Journeyetc

Journeyetc — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:15:02 +0000

After you generate content and all seems to go well, a new, improved design will help very much.

By: earn online

earn online — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:06:56 +0000

you can take the road that even a bad design may be remembered so they come back if the content is good. The principal still applies, CONTENT IS KING!

By: bonoriau

bonoriau — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:53:33 +0000

Reasonable design not to heavy and good content will really help to build up traffic…but some of the blogger just want to blog for their own fun so doesn’t matter what they want to do.

By: mikey777

mikey777 — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:18:42 +0000

I think that a good balance between content and design is the best way to go. Neglect either one and your site will suffer. Content does tend to weigh a bit heavier than design, though. I can agree with that.

By: Marcus Hochstadt

Marcus Hochstadt — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:28:10 +0000

Headline, Matt, all I say is Headline… ;-)

The headline is what catches the eye and captures the visitor’s interest. At least the type of eye and visitor I want. It is what will cause the visitor to pause and take a look. It is what gets them in the door.

I could now bring the example of newspapers, but I think you (and my other readers) get the point…

~Marcus

By: Matt Urdan

Matt Urdan — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:06:43 +0000

I agree 100%. I strive to provide the best content that I can. The only place where I disagree with you though is that you still need to catch the eye. Dropping entrecards for example, you have to give your first time web surfers some reason to pause. Will it be content or a headline? Maybe. But great graphics that catch the eye will cause a web surfer to pause and take a look. Yes, it’s the content that keeps them, but you gotta get them in the door first.

Cheers!