What makes a website successful?

What makes a website successful? Some people say content is the king, some says well built website, some says marketing. Whats your thought?

 

Without good content, you can't market your site well
Without good marketing.. there won't be enough exposure for your site

To prioritize, I'll have to go with content.. but it is truely a mix of both!

 

You need to mix everything up. You need these "3" to tango!

 

I'd say always good content, but imo regarding being well built that depends on your market, the average person won't care if a personal site looks rubbish as long as there is some interesting content they can easily read...you can never rule it out though

 

i would say all three!
make a nice site, good designs, then add quality, unique and fresh content!!

then start the marketing and seo stuffs!

marketing is the most important and most expensive part, as the other two can be managed at cheap rates!

 

Content is the king

After you have nice content, you won't find much difficulty in marketing (minimal efforts) because search engines love it and you will get good natural traffic.

 

Hey wait, I just could not vote because all the 3 are important

But yes content is the king, well built website is the Queen and Good Marketing are young active children

 

content!
without it you got nothin

 

I also have to agree that it is usually all 3

 

A mix of alot of things really. Having compelling, useful content is certainly the most important though.

 

Voted content, but all three really - content just edges it.

 

speed of content update, if your content you have before rest of the sites you get more visitors and it makes your site sucessful

 

Well a good and helpfull site and well known

 

One that makes a tidy profit. It really depends on the goals of your website though.

 

Whats the points in advertising a site with bad content? You wouldnt get any traffic, as noone will be interested. But also, if you advertise well with no good content, noone will return to see your site.

So all are important really i think...

 

I was going to say revenue... I'll take a crappy myspace page if it makes a lot of $$$. But I suppose most sites need a decent mixture of the three to realize this revenue.. Marketing and content are the most important I think

 

I think the content of the site is the most important thing

 

You know, I thought many people would say content.

I picked good marketing.

Afterall, many of the genius money-making schemes were extremely simple, not something to put years of time into.

Now, picture this. You chose content. You have a terrifc content-based website which is unique in every way. What the hell are you going to do now? Twidle your thumbs and hope someone discovers this? Remember, you picked content, so no advertising

Now picture this. You make some half-assed page, which is well made and looks pretty, but the content isn't unique whatsoever. You market the hell out of it, and that's that. Traffic will turn into more traffic, etc. If you don't believe this, picture proxies. Far from unique, since there are thousands of them circulating, but well-advertised proxies (hidemyass.com - I checked their backlinks, and a quite few look to be bought) own many others, despite their general discouragements like the fact that "ass" would be blocked in so many companies/schools.

 

that would be a tough thing converting traffic to more traffic. everybody is struggling specially new ones with traffic issues.
plus you cant come up with unique content ideas every day. but you can take a existing good idea, refine it, make it better your way, and market it.

 

First Content then well biult website then good marketing,all will go side my side.