About a year ago, I had a dialogue with a fellow blogger about career advice. Somehow, it morphed into blogging, probably because there are parallels to developing one’s blog and one’s career. I am the old fart who already went through the ringer and he is the young gun wondering what lies ahead.
We differed in our beliefs that grades matter (I believe they do, he believes not so much), so it was no surprise that we also differed in our beliefs in the importance of website design (I believe less so). Website design matters to a point, and I can certainly appreciate a well designed site. However, how much can you really design on one page until your head starts spinning?
If it was up to me as a reader, I’d prefer to visit a website with as little clutter as possible. If it was up to me as a blogger, I’d prefer to have a website that has the most salient information as possible that doesn’t drive readers away. There is a balance somewhere out there.
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WENT TO A BLOG DUE TO DESIGN?
Unless you are a design blogger who lives design, I’m venturing to guess that you’ve never had the tug to visit a blog just because it looks nice.
On the other hand, there are probably blogs out there which have horrendous designs and layouts which make you not want to visit. As a result, the key is to simply have a non-offensively designed site!
A good enough design, is good enough. Just because you have a prettier header, or two columns instead of three columns doesn’t mean that you will gain more traffic or more authority.
The only thing that matters after a good enough design is your content and your connections with other readers and bloggers in your community.
THE REALITY TEST
When I first started Financial Samurai in the summer of 2009, I hired someone to help get my site off the ground because I had little technical knowledge. We discussed colors, layout, plugin options, and themes. It was a fun process that took only about a couple weeks.
I thought the combination of black, gray, and red was unique, so we went ahead with this three color combination. The font for the header has some metalicness to it which matched the imagery of a sword slicing through money’s mysteries. We went with a two column design for simplicity, some helpful plugins such as Most Commented Posts and Sexy Bookmarks, and a certain number of posts on the homepage which to match the amount of information on the sidebar.
For the past three years, the FS design has not changed. The basic theme is also free. When the blogger started asking me why I still use a free theme, I answered, “Why not? Does not having a custom design make my site less worthy?”
He responded, and I paraphrase, “Well, other bloggers have custom designs and change often, and probably have more traffic, so I’m just wondering.”
It does seem like bloggers change their design once every year or two, and I was also considering changing my design after the second year. The main reason is that when I publish pictures in “large” format, they get scrunched because my site’s layout is not wide enough. Furthermore, my right sidebar is only 270 wide instead of the standard 300 wide for some reason, which means I’ve always got to create custom banners. I need more efficient use of real estate.
I then asked my friend, “So how many pageviews do you think I get a month with my site?”
He responded, “Around 50,000?”
For some reason, he and perhaps others equate a free theme to lower traffic. In fact, I told him that I had well over 100,000 pageviews a month, a 100%+ difference. He was shocked! It was as if there was no way a blog with my design layout, which he’s seen many times before could have such a viewership.
PERCEPTION = REALITY?
I customized the graphics, fonts, and colors around my free theme. So far, traffic has doubled from a year ago as any blog’s traffic will grow if content consistently gets published. There is no mystery here.
I don’t think design beyond “good enough” really matters for growing traffic. However, if one person can judge a site based on design, and not so much on content, perhaps thousands and thousands of others will as well. Perception does matter!
What I think is most important is having a design that is non-offensive and easy to navigate. The one thing I do enjoy is adding pictures to each post to add dimension. After that, it’s all about content.
But finally, in January 2014 I redesigned my site and it’s made a positive difference due to the responsiveness of the layout on different devices.
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Updated for 2017 and beyond.
Of course this subject is near and dear for me since I earn my living as a website designer. I will agree with you that “good enough” is the most important thing people should aim for. As long as the look is cohesive and doesn’t hurt visitors’ eyes, that’s usually fine. However, I do notice that when I stumble on a very well-designed site that is clean and easy to navigate, I’m more likely to read more than one post (assuming the first one is interesting and well-written). Content will always be the most important aspect of a website, but if the design is terrible, readers may not come back.
I will always notice the little nitpicky things that other people don’t, but I try to design with “most people” in mind. I think FS looks fine; that said, if the layout and sidebar size really bother you, they’re pretty easy to tweak. :)
I might just have to hire you to do some tweaking! I need to expand the widths of my columns, remove my useless search bar, and have some better looking or stackable tabs. Let’s chat when I’m back on Sept 3!
My blog is horribly ugly but I am getting it redesigned soon. I had no web knowledge but knew if I didn’t throw something together I would never start. I think design is more about optimizing monitization rather than gaining my monthly views. Hopefully my redesigned site will avoid scaring off readers
I don’t go to a site solely because of their design but I do think it adds something to a blog. Some of the cookie cutter sites feel generic and boring and when I read the posts that perception becomes reality (as you mentioned).
I think a nicer design does add a little more credibility but you’ve obviously proven that it doesn’t matter (although I don’t think your design is “cookie cutter”). At some point quality content can outweigh the design, such as in your case. The problem is that most bloggers don’t have that much quality content.
Jason, are you saying the design on FS is bad because the content needs to outweigh my design? If so, what tips do you have to help improve the design? Thx!
Sometimes I get caught up with website esthetics, when i look at other websites. I’m not interested in putting out the cost to have a pretty site. But I’m wondering about those wp themes many say are SEO optimize, if anything I would have a nice banner.
I’m turned off by a bad design, but I don’t visit sites solely for their aesthetics. As for my own site, I redesigned it this year due to my organic traffic. Most of my visitors who find me on Google are looking for house designs so I geared my site toward that niche since I was leaning that way anyway. I purchased a theme that allowed me to blend house design and personal finance on the home page (I can feature both!) But other than that, I don’t think my design alone is what drives the traffic.
I think if a design is good, it doesn’t make me want to go to a blog more. However, if the design is just plain horrible, then that WILL sway me for not going.
Content is king. The design can be good enough and people won’t notice it.
I used the 2010 theme when I first started. I liked it, but it was super generic. I switched to Thesis earlier this year and I’m really happy with it.
Some theme has better SEO support so that can make a big difference.
I think content is king, followed by optimization (if you have a slow loading site, or a site that doesn’t have good SEO, you will lose out on readers), and then design. However, I think if your design is too jumbled, you lose out as well.
A well-designed site adds credibility. Just like a well-dressed person comes off better in a job interview than a shabbily-dressed individual. While it is always best to get to know the person (or blog) the sad fact remains is that most mammals make decisions based on appearance. A clean and professionally pleasing appearance is always best – in dress and in blog. I think F.S. looks fine in that regard. And like Andrea said, you can always tweak your sidebar size if that bothers you.
Desgin makes it nicer (for lack of a better term) to browse, but doesn’t necessarily make me go to one site more than another. I’ve always said my site feels like stepping into a therapy session with a beach painting and a long chaise lounge where you come in, lay down and talk about your financial problems. I feel like I should have the sound of splashing waves upon opening the site, with a deep, soothing voice inviting you to “reeelaaaaxxxxxxx!”
I do plan on a small re-design soon, but like you said, the content is what keeps you coming back. I have been check out a site called Think Traffic lately, and the motto for growing a blog is simply “write epic shit!”
I wanted to have the relaxation feel as well for Yakezie.com, hence the glowing and darker colors. Not sure if that feeling has been conveyed though since we all have different tastes!
I tend to only click through to a site when I’ve already decided I’m going to comment — so, unless it’s truly offensive, I don’t notice.
I just redesigned my site, so this is a timely topic for me. My old layout was very minimalistic, designed to give readers only a few options: read or subscribe.
My new layout looks more professional, and is intended to be a platform from which to launch products or services (just need to create them, that’s all :(
I think, like you said, your site needs to be at least “good enough.” A well written or curated site can survive an ugly look (think Drudge Report), but it’s not that easy for unestablished sites.
I’ve bantered w/ the whole “feeling more professional” look as well as an argument to redesign. What does looking more professional mean though? What are the professional boxes one must tick to have a more professional looking site?
I don’t think great website design speeds up your pageviews, but I do think that poor web design can get in your readers way and make it so they don’t want to come back.
Sam, You’re in my head. I’ve been thinking about this issue, as someone mentioned that I should get a banner created instead of the text headline: Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance. I probably will follow up, but nothing really fancy. I totally agree with you…. and Trent Hamm over at the Simple Dollar. Content is what matter.
I could stand to clear up some clutter, but I agree that good enough is in fact good enough. As long as the material is easy to find and easy to read, I don’t really care when I’m reading a blog.
Content is certainly first and foremost, but blog design is not to be overlooked. You can definitely get to a point where it’s “good enough” and it may not impact a visitor’s decision to come back. However, what about the actions your visitors take once on your site? That’s where it’s super important. Simple things like the color of a button can make a huge impact on how often it’s clicked. And that sort of user behavior is important to pay attention to. There are things you can do to help users discover more of your content or drastically increase monetization of your site. So yes, my opinion is design is VERY important.
Do you feel you have the optimal design? When you got it, did you see a large uptick in your readers and subscribers?
Do I have the optimal design? Definitely not yet. Just don’t have the bandwidth to do more split testing at the moment, but hope to in the medium term. I do have a design that’s leaps and bounds better than my previous one though.
After my redesign and changing my site’s focus to drive users to a specific funnel, I noticed a big impact in conversions for sure. It did not have an impact on traffic, but as I mentioned in my first comment, that was not the main intent.
I think it’s awesome that you’ve stuck with the same design for so long, it’s more consistent for your many readers.
Personally, I’ve never visited a site because I liked the design or any other elements—so I know what you mean there. :-)
MTAOS has been redesigned about 10 times since I started blogging 2 years ago and it probably just confuses the crap out of my readers. LOL Poor readers. :-(
I can understand that readers come for great content, not fancy blog design. But, I think if a blogger feels good about their design and is proud of their blog, it can inspire them to work harder and potentially increase the quality of their content. Just my opinion. :-)
Very interesting Jen! Did you really redesign your site 10 times in 2 years? What was the catalyst for each redesign? How long does each redesign take?
Well I was making my own (very crappy looking) banners in Paint, OneNote and PowerPoint, so they just never looked good enough. Then I switch this around and that around, change this color and that…etc.
I just never felt things were good enough (probably because they weren’t) and wanted to make it better all the time.
Sounds good. I’m just of the belief it really doesn’t matter after a point. 10X is kinda a lot, but whatever makes you happy, serious!
I can certainly say that a nice clean site design will help! I used to have more ads than I have now until a fellow blogger told me that my site looked like spam. It was hard to hear, but necessary – and I took his advice. Now I think the layout is better (even though it could still be better).
But I also think that design can only take a blog so far before pure quality posting takes over. Look at how plain My Money Blog or Get Rich Slowly are, and how little they’ve changed in appearance over the years. Yet I’d absolutely love to have the kind of traffic they enjoy.
Indeed! Great blogs, worth 8 figures and have been pretty stable with their design all throughout the years.
I’m of the belief that grades should not matter (sorry Sam). All it really means is that a person was able to cram for an exam and memorize the key points of relevance. Actually learning and being apply the knowledge s a more valuable skill in my opinion. Small example: when I was going on my first interviews after I got my accounting degree, I heard a number of times that many grads with high GPAs didn’t have the ability to perform basic accounting tasks. Why? Because they only used tricks to memorize the definitions of words and concepts rather than the true application of those theories.
Back to the website topic. I think design is very important not in terms of attracting visitors, but keeping them and getting them to do what you want. If you ever follow, read or watch Derek Halpern, he suggests keeping blogs fairly simply and calls to action to a minimum. He reasons that if you have a contact form, social media links, blogrolls, etc you are confusing the reader in terms of where you want them to go. Do you want them to leave your page for another site? Do you want them to sign up for your email list? Do you want them to click out to your social profiles? If the biggest benefit is gaining subscribers, then he says you should remove all other calls and give them plenty of chances to subscribe to the mailing list. From there, you can push any products you are selling, add affiliate links, social profile links, etc.
Personally, I hate sites that are so busy the context becomes secondary. There are many blogs with dual columns of ads, badges, links, and other widgets that it overpowers the context itself. There are sites where the posts are written in such a way that there is no white space, using tiny text leading to eye strain just to read an article. I tend not to go back to those sites simply because it’s not worth the hassle to try and read a singular article, much less explore others.
It’s great to have lots of visitors, but if you don’t make it easy for them to do what you want them to do, or to find what they are looking for, then they will leave shortly after they arrive. If they don’t stick around, then they are of no use in terms of either a monitization strategy nor building a community.
Why not just get straight A’s so you can have the optionality upon graduation? Why not actually learn and apply knowledge AND have a 4.0 GPA?
I’m not saying that shouldn’t be the goal at all. The truth, unfortunately, is that simply having good grades doesn’t necessarily mean anything other than having an ability to pass tests. There are many people who are very smart who aren’t very skilled at testing, whereas others aren’t as smart but know how to prepare for and take tests. It’s just something that can’t be taken as an absolute that high grades equate to anything more in the real world.
When a company receives 1,000 applications for 10 spots for recent college graduates, it is an inevitability that some type of screening is used b/c the company can’t speak to everyone. One key metric is GPA.
Just saying, be smart, learn, and work hard to give as high a GPA as possible to give yourself as many chances as possible. My first job’s cutoff GPA was a 3.7 out of 4.0, and there were over 6,000 applicants for 60 spots worldwide.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this statement:
“…the most salient information as possible…”
As a web designer, I think that content on a website is the most important thing and great web design shouldn’t be noticed. Look at the majority of googles work for examples of this.
There are some things you can do to help your blog – Different fonts, sizes and line spacing all effect how readable your content is.
As said above though, building an identity is important and design aids this, especially if its unique or the logo is particularly easy to remember.
On client sides I used to do A/B split testing between different designs – It’s great to be able to see where the design is increasing visitor involvement.
I think grades matter in the majority of cases. You’ll have your anomalies where people with grades can’t apply it and where people without grades go on to great success. But, from my experience, grades make a huge difference.
I’m of the belief that website design comes second to the content. However, I’ve been turned off by website design in the past and it’s stopped me going back to the website. I hate voucher code websites because they are crammed full of information but it’s difficult to navigate.
I’ve redesigned the theme to If You Can Read, You Can Cook three times in the year and a half it’s been on WordPress. But I doubt anyone noticed, because it’s largely been under the hood stuff to make it faster. Aside from adding or removing some things in the sidebar, the site looks largely like it did the whole time. For Edward Antrobus, I’m still using Twenty Eleven!
I change my often, but mostly because I get bored easily and use my blog as an outlet. I agree that there are some sites that aren’t overly designed that get a lot traffic, and I doubt that the webdesign is the sole cause of the that.
Personally, I think your FS design is great, and still unique enough to keep as is! I had to change my theme recently become it was a beta theme and had inherent SEO issues that hurt my site unbeknownst to me :(
I wonder how much traffic you’d get if you were to optimize for higher SERPs… Seems like you are doing very well already though, so I guess it doesn’t matter!
Your 270px sidebar issue might be a simple css change.
I’m agreeing with the majority in thinking a nice design can really improve the reader’s experience.
This is why I invested in a premium theme and tried to do any customization before I start to grow Milk and Honey Money. I know from experience that tweeking a design isn’t a big deal, but a complete redesign for an established site will most likely cause a lot of headaches.
I’m not sure why you would need to make custom banners for your sidebar. Why not just resize your 300px width banner? Multiply the height by 0.9?
That’s what I do and ask the client to do.
I’ve got a lot to learn so I am interested in hearing how your traffic has improved since your redesign if you can share some stats.
Thanks!
That’s what I do and ask the client to do. It’s just one extra step.
I’ve got a lot to learn so I am interested in hearing how your traffic has improved since your redesign if you can share some stats.
Thanks!
That’s what I do and ask the client to do. It’s just one extra step.
I’ve got a lot to learn so I am interested in hearing how your traffic has improved since your redesign if you can share some stats.
Thanks!
Well, on Milk and Honey Money my traffic has gone from Zero to an all time high of 20 visits yesterday :) I wish I had something better to share, but other than that I don’t have any stats.
Here’s a site packed full of stats. It mostly focuses on landing page optimization, which I’m sure is much more heavily influenced by design than a blog, but it gives you an idea of some actual stats.
http://www.marketingexperiments.com/blog/
One good sign is their blog uses the same theme as FinancialSamurai.com :)
Solid! you’ll have to keep me updated with more tips as you progress.
I think a well designed site gets your attention just like a pretty woman! Content becomes more important after you have your attention.
Very well said!
As long as a site looks somewhat “professional” I don’t think it really matters. (I think mine is terrible btw!) Personally speaking as long as a site is easy to read I don’t pay too much attention to all that much else. The only thing that really turns me off to a site is if there is too much popping up trying to take my attention away (scroll over text ads are the worst!)
I read most of my blogs through my RSS Feed reader so the design is secondary for me. I go for the content of the blog over the design.