How Important is The Design of a Website?

I'm only a noob myself. So I think its good to put yourself in the buyers point of view.

If you are interested in the niche chances are that you are in the niche or rather you have looked at and or purchased stuff in the niche.

What has appealed to you? what made you buy?

Graphics or not are a question of testing really. What brings the buyers vote (the wallet)? Its more important to get something out there and start getting traffic to it rather than make it all perty and stuff. I don't know. Just some thoughts. You could get some ok graphics done on fiverr and not have to spend a crap ton of moolah.

You gotta get some traffic before you really know what will convert.

Course you could spy on some of your competition. check out the google ads on your main keyword. see what the competition is paying money for their visitors to see.

While content is the most important part, I still think that quality design is important too.

Killer content can make up for a lack of design, but a great design cannot make up for lacking content.

However, the truth is, whether people want to admit it or not, *everyone* judges books by their cover. So taking extra steps to try and have the design reflect the image/feelings/persona you want can only be beneficial. First impressions are everything.

I think good design, good navigation and ease of use of website is very important. Write original and useful content on website. You can take inspiration from other good websites about both design and content but restrain yourself from copying. Do something original.

Both content and design are very important - visitors may turn away from your website if either of these is unattractive. However, you don't have to spend so much money for a graphic designer as you're planning on doing. Don't rule our website builders like Wix or Exai- you can make some nice websites there.

According to me first thing that will catch attentation is desgin not content. So if a website with good appreance catches eye and content is also necessary but normal content call also make a site good and happening.

Good or bad design does not make or break a website. Bad usability can break a website though, if visitors can't use the website as they expect to they will click away no matter how good/bad your content and/or design is.

The content is the number one according to importance.... So we can say, contents are like food and design is like salt.... Without design the content will not looks good and your buyer will think you are not a professional unless you are very old and established company.

I do not like WarriorForums current design but I am using it as it is one of the most biggest IM forum. But if this was a new site I would ignore this site just for design.

Hope it makes sense.

According to me the content of the site matters much more then the design but if you think as a customer first of all the outer design gives the best impression later the content of the site. So along with the content design plays a key role in developing a site.

just look at top companies like apple and google - design plays a critical part of their business plan. Even Microsoft is starting to follow suit, their new os metro is all about usability and aesthetically pleasing design.

It depends on what your offer is. If it's a brilliant offer then it can be as rubbish as you like. If your offer is no good then no amount of fancy or seductive design will get them to buy...

For a succesful website it is not necessary to develop a graphic website..!!
all you have to do is choose a elegant theme which takes very less time in laoding content..!!
and do generate the organic traffic via forum posting,directory submision,blog commenting,socail bookmark sharing site..
submit ur website url to top directory with pr above 5...and do blog commenting on sites similar to ur site niche..
do forum posting as much as u can..
make your content fresh and unique...above all a blooger need patience and consistence in his work..
Happy blogging..hope it helps you..

When someone visits site easy navigation in the design and colors of the design attract people so i think design is one of the best issue we have to check in order to get more visitors

i think design is equally important for a website it gives the first impression

One of the main ingredients for having a successful website or blog is to have a good design.
Usually, when you search the internet, our eyes immediately react to the aesthetic aspect of the website.

These are some of the key areas you need to look at so that your website will have a lot of readers:
1.Visual Design
2.Professionalism
3.Accessibility

The design of a website create a very important role in the development of a business.it also create users attraction.

As I wrote in my blog post "First Impressions, Business Etiquette, Professional Clothing, Dress Code", "Success in Business is often defined and limited by the relationships and networks You have and create in this world.

Intelligence or Knowledge is not the most important element that will matter when trying to build and maintain proper and valuable relationships.

The First Impression Someone Forms About You Will Define Most of Your Relationship with that Person or Company. Intelligence, a Talent or Your Knowledge is not something that can be seen immediately when meeting You. What a First Impression is based upon is Your
- Attire
- Physical Appearance
- Posture
- Handshake
- Mimics
- Gestures
An Impression is usually formed within 30 seconds, often before You ever even start speaking, solely based on the above factors that You have Control over
- Voice (Including Volume, Pitch, Speed)
- Vocabulary
You can Never Underestimate The Importance Of Learning and Knowing what the Proper Way is to present Yourself to Form a Good First Impression."

As the reference above applies to offline business building and customer relationship building, I think we can equally transfer it to the online world.

Whether a viewer of your site is "attracted" to it, is determined in the first couple of seconds based on your design, including your colors, images, layout, etc.
So it is very important to have a likeable site design that will keep people interested - ease of navigation is however equally important and is after the first impression of your site, what often determines how much time a viewer will spend on your site.

That being said, many highly successful sites (such as Craigslist) for example, have very basic designs that none us would assess as great, attractive, or interesting.
Yet, those sites offer a services that is highly sought after and are thus visited by millions of people regardless of their design and/or navigation.

Depending on what you offer to your readers or site visitors, I would recommend you base the time and care of your web design on that.

You have to figure out what your primary purpose is.

Design plays a major role. Chances are if your design is bad no one will stick around long enough to read the content. Part of the design also effects how easy it is to navigated. If they can't navigate they're not likely to stick around out of pure frustration. Generally speaking design gets people on your site and content keeps them on.

You don't have to have a masterpiece but you need your site to look decent, easy use and to be organized.

Of course it also depends on what the site is for. A business site needs to look more professional or you might run the risk of people not taking you seriously. Forums, blogs and personal sites generally just need to be organized and easy to navigate, though it helps if your site doesn't blink users.

I would definitely say design plays a MAJOR role. Think of the age old saying, first impressions last. If you have a site that is pleasant on the eye, clean, professional and has average content, you will probably stick round to read the content and find out that it really is average.

If you take (however) a site that has spectacular content (especially long articles etc) but has a terrible design... a lot of people will look at it and think it is inferior, and can sometimes give the impression that content has been ripped off from elsewhere. Well at least that is the impression that I personally get sometimes.

So I would say you definitely want to focus on a happy medium between the two, neither can be discounted over the other.
Stuart

The design is very very important . if you have a bad design on your website, even if you have the best content on the internet, people won't start reading It and they don't find out about your content

Impressive Web design and fresh content - both are essential elements of the successful website. With an impressive website and relevant content which depicts your services in the most rightful manner, you can hook up your customers for long. However, if any of it lags then your online sales will suffer and your search engine ranking as well.

In my opinion it is the most important thing!!

initial attention catcher.
so yeah very important but only to ensure people register interest.
whether they "activate" and pay you after that is not a matter of design but product and how convincing your demo/presentation is.

I believe it is the most important thing, with short punchy 'to-the-point' content a close second. Design is utmost, it is what keeps a visitor beyond 10 seconds. How many times have you jumped on a site just to push the back button because the site still looked like it was in the late 90s.

Form my point of view Website design is major part. Good design force user to stay for on the website.

Yes. It is important to have a website that is easy to understand and it

should be very informative. The page should be attractive so that customers will stay

and read more of what you are offering.

Good traffic depends on good design.

Web standards can also help your website with:

• Faster loading times
• Easier to maintain code
• Lower maintenance costs
• Search engines

Absolutely it's important! You could have the best site with the best content in the world! But if it's so ugly to look at that your eyes bleed then nobody is going to go there regardless of how great the content is.

Content and design both play equal part in the success of your website but if your budget is little low first try to create very good content for your website and after that even if you make an average looking website still you will surely get good traffic but you must ensure that the navigation of your site must be good and their should be no lags..

Clearly, the design of the site is important. It is a part of your presentation and therefore impacts whether a prospect will buy from you.

If you don't have a lot of money to spend, you have a few options.

• You can buy a relatively inexpensive wordpress theme. There are plenty of themes to choose from. You might even find a free one you like.
• You outsource the work offshore. This will be more expensive than buying a wordpress theme but probably a lot less expensive than an on-shore designer.