So the whole reason you have your website is to get as many readers to your page as possible, engage with them, sign people up to your newsletter and become a rockstar in your niche so you can make millions selling whatever it is you sell. You want people to comment on your posts and have people share the content you worked so hard to put up. Over the years there has been a debate about whether DESIGN or CONTENT is more important in order to attract new loyal followers and keep the ones you already have.
The reason I wanted to give my two cents on the debate is because ADRIANCHILDERS.com just got a magnificent new redesign. I have to thank my Dad, Steve Childers for creating the new banner on the site and fellow alumni Fraternity Brother, Geoff Walker for the entire design and fitting everything into place.
When coming up with a design you need something that the reader can identify with you. In this age of extremely fragmented news sources, people don’t simply follow the best news source, they follow personalities and the design on your webpage should be a reflection of your personality. I also have a picture of myself on the top right side because I want new readers to be able to know who is behind the blog posts. I want to show transparency and be a trusted source of valuable information.
Part of creating a design on your site that is truly unique to you is investing in a customizable, premium blog theme. Too many people choose to simply throw up a free theme, which gives you very little ability to customize. Free themes can be easily spotted and demonstrates to the reader that you don’t take the look and feel of your blog seriously. Another aspect that separates the pro bloggers from the wannabes are those that own their own domain as opposed to having the free ones that include for example blogger or wordpress or whatever those free services include at the end of your domain. To own your domain, you have to pay for web hosting.
If you truly want to create a strong web presence you have to get a theme you can customize and a domain that is yours. These are important components that require an initial investment, but if not done, regardless of how good your content is readers may not take your blog seriously. Incase your wondering and would like to use the same services for your own site, the premium theme I purchased is the Thesis theme for WordPress by Chris Pearson and the web hosting I use is from Host Gator. Highly recommend both!
Lastly, if you want to get new readers you have to make your content easy to share. Even if people that read your blog want to share it with their friends, but takes them longer than five seconds to figure out how to do it, it’s likely they wont make the effort. Thanks to social media and real time information, we have the shortest attention spans we have ever had in history, so if people aren’t sharing you content, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s because it not worth sharing, but rather you haven’t made it easy enough for people to do so.
Now it takes a long time for you to be absolutely happy with the design of your site. While you figure out exactly what you want the design to look like keep pumping out the content. Blogs and any types of websites are always a work in progress and when you finally do figure out and implement the design you want, you will already have both good content with a great design.
Now as far as what’s more important… A great web design or valuable content, I think content because no matter how pretty or cool your site is people want to learn and take something away after visiting. Let me know your thoughts below about what you think is more important.
If you need someone to help you design a website contact Steve Childers at steve [at] sachilders.com or Geoff Walker proprietor of 6DS www.6ds.biz at aloha [at] 6ds.biz.