(3)
What would you prefer:
* A pretty website that has no content * An ugly website that has a lot of content
If you were building links, which kind of site would you prefer to link to? In a WebmasterWorld discussion, it seems that appearances may not matter. A "nice clean" look may be fine, though.
Some disagree and believe that aesthetically pleasing sites are likely to be linked more than other sites. Most people do not feel that this sentiment is appropriate -- the content is really the most important thing for link-building, according to many webmasters. Of course, it depends on the niche, but people want informative content. Think about Wikipedia, for example. Is it "pretty?" Nope -- it's clean and neat -- but it has a lot of content that many people are looking for.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
This post was pre-written and scheduled for publication on October 21.
Comments:
Jim Gaudet
10/21/2008 01:26 pm
Content. The word is relevance. I think it is important to have links with content that is relevant to your own content.
katinka hesselink
10/21/2008 01:49 pm
Content is king. I would avoid designs that are unprofessionally flashy: purple + black + green, for instance. Or websites with popups or something. URL's matter. But a flashy design (in a good way) with no content is not going to get serious links, where a basic design with good content is very likely to get links.
Ryan
10/24/2008 11:42 am
The fact is though, if your site looks really cheap and unprofessional nobody is going to want to link to it no matter how good the content is.