This is something Ive wondered about in the past and am now wondering about once again: How important is having a "great" design for getting links? Personally, I'm thinking that in most (informational) niches whether you have a flashy/professional looking design or just a basic, neat design wouldn't have much of an effect on link building success rates. However, if you sell cars or jewlrey you better have a great design. What have your experiences been? Is it easier to get links if you go with a professional looking template (including the footer link to the designer) than if you build your own site (which looks good and neat, but not "great")? Or doesn't it matter a lot except for certain niches?
Great design can attract some link from other sites in your niche but it has to come along with a great content too. Great design is not likely to get an easy link like it used to be because there are great design everywhere. You should focus on content topic - the topic that peoples can spread in forums and more.
No one is going to want to send their visitors to crappy websites. So the answer is yes, its very important.
yes,in my opinion free and good backlinks are very important and you should have good design to take them
Yes, I totally agree. Great content must always prevail over great design. Good design will keep people on your site, but content will GET them there in the first place. It's easy to spend too much time trying to make the website look perfect and the content can suffer.
What constitutes a "good design" varies dramatically from audience to audience However, it's a huge factor when it comes to attracting links from other sites.
But It will be difficult to define what a good design is. I think it will be alright as long as it is easy to navigate and neat.
Good design always add value to your site, and content. IMHO, with availablity of so many sites with quality designs, no one would prefer visiting sites with crappy designs. You gotta make it look different, if you want to leave an impression. And yea, content is the king but design helps too.
Professionalism is the rule. What is professional in your niche. Who is your customers. Think in terms of shopping. What are the expectations of a customer of Walmart vs Saks?