What is more important for a blog: Content or Design?

Well, there is no quick and dirty answer. First of all, most everyone will say content. Some will say design, but I say it's content, audience, message, and design.

To the casual visitor, the design might catch their eye, but to get a return visit, the content had better be engaging, resonate with your target audience (notice I said target). I know of many bloggers that have little to no design for their blogs and have hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

So, if you are new to blogging, start with the audience and figure out to whom you are addressing. Learn what makes them hurt, stay up at night or just plain sick. Address those issues with viable solutions and live in their skin for a while. Your message will resonate with them if you speak to them, not at them.

Worry about design last. Just make it readable, visible or audible.

The short and hands-down answer? CONTENT. Remember as well, the title of your post is your "10-second elevator pitch" equivalent but you have a mere instant (pretty much) when it comes to online articles/blog posts to get them to read or pass. #technoage #nopatience #shortattentionspan

Yes, adding some user-friendly enhancements would also be great but that's AFTER you've got great content going on :)

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First of all congratulations for setting up your new blog.

Well, for a blog website you need a mix of several things, you cannot be succeeded by relying on only 1 element. But the question is how much you need to concentrate on each element? The answer totally depends on your niche you are writing for.

I would appreciate if you can share more details here so I can guide you better.

Hi Abdulaziz,

Yes, both, but content first. Your great content will have excellent titles like "The 5 most ambitious IT developers in the world" or "Top 10 mistakes every great dentist easily makes". Your website should have easy-to-read paragraphs related to timely news, your business, backstage scenes of your companies, your expertise, and will definitely have to be equipped with good SEO marketing.

However, if your existing blog is not working as well as you expect it to, I would suggest considering your design first and focus on the audience website experience, not just the colouring and the layout.

As for design, it is important to have it offer an easy path to your audience/visitors to come to your service page or whatever the page that you want them to see and eventually to buy your services. Online purchase has a lot to do with emotions and sleek and functional design that's well-thought-out would be absolutely worthwhile investing in.

Hope this helps.

Content is most important, while you cannot ignore design as well.
SEO is how customers arrive at your online doorstep. To have a better SEO, you need to have a better content strategy in your blog.

It is not Content, or Design, but both.

These are not mutually exclusive but work with each other to produce readable content of value to the reader.

Design includes contextual imagery, headlines and subheads that ensure visual hierarchy and readability, pull quotes and images that break the rhythm, drop caps that capture attention, etc.

A great example of good blog design would be:
a] Think With Google [check this blog: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/experience-design/mobile-shopping-ecosystem/]
b] Another would be the long form articles at The Verge [check this one: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2017/12/12/16651026/faraday-future-investigation-money-debt-finances-yueting]

Content has to spell value to the reader and for stickability. Design eggs the reader to stay on and read - maximizes the value.

For me both are important but quality of content matters a lot as compared to design for blogs.

Content is more important than design when it comes to blogging. But if your blog design is good, that is definitely a plus that helps to attract visitors. Always keep in mind that content is king...

First, go with content and optimize the design as you go.

From my experience, obviously content. I've seen very minimalistic designs with awesome content (a wide range of comprehensive information, images, charts, interviews - Google loves all these stuff).

Also, a very complicated theme (tons of sliders, subscription pop-ups etc.) might make it for some users difficult to get around and these days you need to grab someone's attention as soon as the page loads.

Respect your visitor, think like you'd be the visitor.

Keep all clean and simple is the way in my opinion.

Good luck!