Well, we all are webmasters here, so everytime you build another site you need to choose a template, a design for your site. What do you think is better in terms of more quality user exprience and of course better ctr for adsense and other ads? Simple template: don't spend too much time on templates and design as after all, what really matters is content and links and only these bring traffic no matter how good your site looks. Also easy templates generate better ctr, more visitors click your ads and this is whats really important. Also look at all the most popular sites, like wikipedia, dmoz etc.. google only likes plain html content. good complicated design: User experience depends on how good your site is built, visitors won't come to your site again if it's only ads and articles. People love graphics and unique design and your site will look more serious and get more natural links this way. What do you think?
Well I would rather choose something in between. Frankly I hate websites that are very complicated and graphical in nature, they have no benifit other than boasting about the skills of the artist. But often simple templates tend to get too simple which usually results in usability problems. Websites like Wikipedia however tend to do it correctly and offer a simple template without sacrificing usability and attractiveness. Another good example is http://www.alistapart.com/, imho one of the best examples of how a great template should look and how a website should be structured. Anyway, it also depends on website demographics. If it's aimed at gamers you better go for something fancy and impressive, if it's aimed at people who simply look for information you better keep it simple and very usable.
I'd also say something in between, for me go with a simple template but spend a lot of time on it. It's about the small details of a website. It looks simple but it's not, I believe that's the real power of a template. And ofcourse the content has to be great, not to many ads.. I was blown away from some of these templates.. http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/alldesigns/official/ when seeing this, I have to start learning css div span now I also like http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ very much.
I wholeheartedly agree with those who have indicated there is a happy medium between text and graphics. SOme of the most aesthetically pleasing sites IMHO are largely text/content based -- but the graphics they use are of the highest quality, or presented in a unique fashion. Examples that come to mind are Bearskinrug, Apples to Oranges, and Coudal Partners. --Stephen
To me it should be simple, with one or two image (small/medium), minimum use of javascript, no frame, css based.
I have made two site, one was so complicated with frames and javascript and applets, and it looked ok, but when ranking it didn't rank to well, vs my other essay site it was very simple 3 picture at the most and now it has a pr of 3 comming up on 4. So yeah keep it simple
Simple is always the way to go. You can make simple look good to! With simple designs, it allows you to easily update in the future and make tweaks.