What is more important for a blog: Content or Design?
I just started a blog and wanted to know if adding features to the blog and/or enhance the design would be worthwhile monetarily.
Expert Answers
Sort by Date
Sort by Votes
Oct 15, 2019
The first impression is the last impression. Visual and content both are important. The content has to be as good as the design. Nowadays, due to real advancement in technology, people are mostly using portable devices. They don’t waste time reading long articles with poor visuals. I always worked with an experienced digital agency for my satisfaction like https://lightwavedigital.co.uk.
Oct 2, 2018
The most important content is the information given to the user. Then it should be explained with visuals.
Sep 29, 2018
Design and content, both are most important for any kind of blog. Because no one will read your content again if your blog has low-quality content.
You can attract your blog readers' attention with the help of the beautiful design of your blog.
Make sure, your content will not be copied from other websites. Always try to be unique. The more you provide meaningful and useful content to your readers, the more they will take interest in your blog.
The design is the very first point that will draw your readers' mind to the blog content. If your blogging platform is WordPress, then there is one way to design your blog without extra effort: https://wordpress.org/plugins/blog-designer/
It is a step ahead WordPress plugin that allows you to modify blog and single page layouts and design.
Making your design more visible to your readers will inspire them to read your content easily.
I hope my answer will be helpful to you.
Aug 20, 2018
I think you’ve asked one of the internet’s great questions there! Content writers like myself will, of course, say it’s the words that really matter most, while designers may beg to differ.
But let me ask you a different question: “Why would you want your blog to look and sound less than great?”
If you’ve chosen to start a blog it’s presumably because you want to showcase yourself, your company or a product. Even if it’s only personal, you’ve still gone to a not inconsiderable effort to put your ideas out there and invite people to read them. Therefore, you should make it look as good as possible within the budget that you have - and make sure your content is the best it can be. Otherwise, why bother?
That said - and looking at the sub-heading to your question - from a commercial perspective it’s worth noting that design on its own doesn’t really sell anything. It just makes you look good. In a recent article for Webdesigner Depot (https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2018/06/4-ways-to-improve-your-sites-content/) I argue that “there are two key areas in which only content can really perform: driving traffic to the website, whether by garnering links or attracting bots; and making that final link with customers that persuades them to buy.”
Only great content - whether photos or words - will make you stand out and gather repeat views. Of course, you’ll want it to look good and you should make the effort, but I’m not convinced you need to spend any money: It’s perfectly possible to run a decent-looking blog on a free platform and make it stand out by the quality of your content. As others have said here, the user experience is now very important in Google ranking so, to an extent, you want to keep things simple and in particular, images relatively small to aid page load times.
My advice is: make your design good and your content great and spend any extra resources on promoting your blog. That’s the real hard work!
Aug 10, 2018
The design for sure can attract the attention of the readers. However, it is the content that engages them and can even lead to conversions ultimately. This is the only factor that leads to the readability of the blogs. The design of the blog can be optimized later, but the content should be taken care of first.
Aug 9, 2018
“Web design and content are like the yin and the yang, perfectly balancing one another. Or, if you prefer to think of it in terms of form vs. function, great website design is the form that creates the vital first impression. Content is the Function, the device that attracts search engines, intrigues your audience, and drives measurable results.”
-Good design attracts people to your website. Good content keeps them there.
-Your web design and written content work together to develop a cohesive branding message.
-Both design and content are key factors in obtaining a better position in search engine results.
So before this turns into a knockdown, drag-out struggle to steal the spotlight, be sure you understand that web design and content marketing are equally important to the development of a successful online presence. Instead of competing, your design and content must work together. A great website can’t have one without the other!
Aug 8, 2018
Both are important for the blog in their own ways, they go hand in hand.
'Content is the king' as said by many is true.' If the content is good the user is going to remember you and will surely visit again. Your content should connect with your audience.
On the other hand, a person hardly spends any time on a page with a design that is dull or boring, it is very necessary to make sure that the design is attractive to keep the audience hooked to the page.
Hope this was helpful.
Jul 24, 2018
Both are important for a website. Good content brings organic traffic from Google search and design increase user or visitor engagement to your website.
Jul 24, 2018
As per the latest trends, both are required because a design helps users to easily navigate and content engage with the audience.
Jul 4, 2018
Heyo,
Both are equally important, but I would stress focusing on developing a functional blog without all the bells and whistles. Remember, more users are accessing content on mobile devices than ever right now, and the numbers will only continue to increase in the coming years. I've seen businesses focus too much on aesthetics and churn out boring content, resulting in little-to-no conversions. With mobile sending nearly 50% of traffic to the majority of websites these days, chances are that users won't even notice any cool features you implement on a blog. On the flipside, I've worked with businesses that had functional blogs that generated a lot of traffic, leading to a significant increase in conversions.
In terms of adding features to a blog, I would stress against anything but social sharing and lead gen forms (depending on the type of website you own). Implementing superfluous features or designing an ostentatious blog will only serve to impress people, but not necessarily lead to conversions. However, if you invest your time into creating authoritative and informative content, you'll increase the visibility of your blog via search engines, which can lead to an uptick in conversions.
I hope that helps!
Jul 23, 2018
Good point Jonathon.
Recently Google announced they are leading the search engine results with their mobile index as the priority, which means that your site MUST be fast and have a good user experience on mobile to get organic traffic.
Jun 21, 2018
Both. User experience is what Google pays its close attention to. Therefore, you need to work on a comfy yet up-to-date design and a content. It has to attract people.
There are many people who generate leads from their blog because it looks awesome and it has a strong voice. Like Ahrefs's blog is in their top 3 for generating leads. Isn't it amazing?
Never stop working on your website design. Install a heat map. For that, I could recommend Hotjar. Their free version allows up to 300 video recordings and data on the heat map. Though you will have a dofollow external link on your website. Collect data on how users behave on your site and work with it.
Jun 14, 2018
As we all know "Content is the King" so considering that, Design is the queen. Yes, quality content is very much required to make your blog successful, yet design delivers the right vibes to your visitors.
May 20, 2018
I think it all depends on your purpose in running your blog. If you run a blog to support your main business, create content that can help support your customers. But if you run a blog to become a publisher of a certain niche, make your blog design user-friendly and submit useful content. Both content and web design are important if you want to optimize your blog for search engines. Most search engines rank deep content better and get pages with light web design to the first page of the search results. But if we talk about SEO there are many things to optimize your site design and its content such as on-page SEO, keyword destiny, sitemap, and so on.
May 15, 2018
Both can be equally important.
If you use a blogging platform, such as Ghost, Medium or WordPress, the design is mostly handled for you via templates.
Don't try to get something too elaborate for the blog, there are many turnkey, SEO ready templates available for free or cheap.
That leaves you with being able to focus on content and marketing.
May 15, 2018
Hi,
I would say the ratio is 70-30. Obviously, people are there to read about the topic so the content is important but at the same time, it will impress the readers if it is written in a neat, clean and proper way. Nobody wants to waste their time.
Thanks!
May 1, 2018
I would say the main element of a blog is the content and the domain authority. The design does play a part but as long as its a usable and readable design, I would not spend a lot of time on it. A design you like may not appeal to the next person. It's just like movies & restaurants, you may love something but the next person may hate it. Design is a very personal thing.
Content, on the other hand, is why the viewer is likely to be visiting your site. So relevant content will have a far more lasting impact on a viewer than design.
May 1, 2018
I want to say the most important for a blog is to first set your goal. What do you want the end user to get out of your blog? Then, you can work with content and design to ensure the goal is met. I've seen tons of blogs. Some that are to text heavy and it is hard to follow, others that have too pretty of a design and I bounce all over the place.
If you keep your blog focused on the goal the end user will surely get what is needed out of your content and enjoy your design!
Mar 31, 2018
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!
Content is KING of any blog.