Ugly Blog or Pretty Blog?

If it's outside the IM niche I would go with some esthetic enhances whatever those may be.

Perhaps create a nice header with some simple shadow borders. That will always give the impression of a professional Web 2.0 site, and not just some blog you crafted over the weekend.

The rest, if it's clean and full of value, nobody will care about pretty graphics.

What I like to do with 'list building sites' is make my opt-in box match my header. These will be the only pieces grabbing 'aggressive' attention, without being to pushy.

Best of luck,
Dan

If your site is already converting well, you might not want to mess with it. Keep in mind, one of the ugliest sites around is also one of the busiest... and extremely profitable... I'm speaking of course of craigslist. Would making that site prettier increase traffic and/or profitability? Probably not. The appeal is in how useful it is to people.

If you decide to make any changes whatsoever, there may be a significant cost associated with doing so... even if you make use of a free or low-cost theme. If changing the look and feel, adding "eye-candy" to make the site more attractive could have the unintended consequence of distracting people from the various calls to action that already exist on your site and prompt them to opt-in and buy. There's nothing wrong with having a "pretty" site, and I always do try to make my sites aesthetically pleasing... but remember the purpose of the site... it's not a work of art, people aren't going to print it out, frame it, and hang it on their walls. The purpose is for it to make you money, and if it's doing that... then it's probably wise to go with the "if it ain't broke... don't fix it" approach.

On the other hand, one could argue that making it "prettier" could potentially increase conversions, and that is indeed possible. You might be leaving money on the table by NOT beautifying the site, and the obvious suggestion would be to do some split testing. Ordinarily I would say that would be a great idea. Rotate two versions, and see which one converts better... then leave the higher converting version in place.

HOWEVER, you are in the enviable position of having a number 1 on page 1 position in Google. If you change your content in any way, shape, or form... you do run the risk of losing that spot the next time your site is indexed. Obviously Google really likes the page as it is, and while it makes no judgment on aesthetics, if you start modifying look and feel, using a different theme... then you will inevitably modify the content as well. Even a subtle change in the position of text on a page might have an impact... nobody can say for sure... Google is nothing if not fickle. There are also items that aren't necessarily visible without looking at the source of the page... meta tags, use of H1, H2 tags and so on... and changing your theme might result in changing these other page elements from how they are used and placed by optimize press. For you... split testing carries some real risks. In theory, if you see your position drop in Google after switching, it would logically follow that switching back to how you had things before might restore your position. I have nothing to offer that would contradict that theory, but of course... Google is fickle, their algorithm is top-secret and can only be reverse-engineered to a certain point. Nobody outside Google knows 100% of the rationale for placing one site in one position and another in a different one. It is a big unknown. I say play it safe, enjoy that top spot for as long as you can.. and do NOTHING that could anger the Google Gods and possibly have any impact on that position. It would be a real shame to make the site more attractive, only to have it moved to page 10 simply because your new theme no longer causes a certain line of text to be wrapped in an H1 tag, thereby making Google think that text is now less important than it had been, and re-indexing accordingly... bumping up "more relevant" sites into what was your top spot.