Nice site design vs Good Traffic? I have always designed my site in low graphics and mostly used text in my website. As a result my simple site with SEO brought me good traffic and scored well in SERPS. Always i keep my sites plain and simple which simply does the job. I am worried that if i redesign my site using images and graphics, that my rankings would hurt. Thats why i am asking this question? Would you prefer a nice professional website or good visitors? (for a new site) which one would you take?
This really is a tough one, everyone wants a site with plenty of visitors but equally important (to me anyway) is a website that has a flair of creativity to it. I have seen many sites in my experience that are excellent in design and do look top notch but they are totally dead, and I have seen sites that aren't that well designed but do seem to do rather well with visitors. Personally I'd go for a mix between the two; it's wrong to focus all your energies on making a graphically good site, on the other hand it can't hurt to spend a little more time working on graphics.
The site should be simple, fair, page weight should be minimum. This will be quite helpful to drive traffic..
I think if your text amount is the same or even will addup, it really doesn't matter. The engine still will look for the text.
Just add images to your site. Make your sites the same way and add few images and it will be fine. If you know how to make site Seo then adding a few not alot of images will not hurt. Just make sure page does not load slow or you can loose customers.
Its important to make your site visually pleasing to people, you just want to make sure that you balance it well with ease of use and navigation. The best way to spice up your website without sacrificing the look too much is by putting up custom headers, banners, and logos. They are easy to replace and can make a huge difference. PM if if your interested in any of these, I can help.
I think there is a need for balance. It is true that a nice and clean website with simple HTML and no fuzzy and complicated images and graphics does have its merits. At least loading speeds are faster and visitors do not get too frustrated waiting for the page to load. But that said, it still needs to look professional to attract the attention of visitors. After all, presentation and first impressions count.