Naff looking sites or quality sites?

[stevey]

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Following a debate going on in another thread it would be interesting to know how many make their money from naff site designs and how many from quality site designs?

I've always wondered how Michael Anthony could make so much from his site designs but it is obviously a skill I must be lacking, marketing wise, etc.

Cheers,

stevey

[lowndsy]

there probably is an arguement in favour of naff sites but my artistic soul just won't allow me to release anything too naff. Simple sites - fair enough, but not naff.

[Dynamoo]

I'm with lowndsy.. I couldn't bear to create something that I thought was naff. Simple but elegant is the way to go!

[Barry]

All my 'designs' are naff, but my sites seem to do ok. ie I make a full time living from it.

In my opinion its far better to have a 'functional' dirty looking site than a nice looking site that has no function.

[mibut]

I think that Barry hits the nail on the head.
Functional with lots of good content , clear navigation, readable text and easy on the eye.

[Ste]

From a user point of view I dont care what a site looks like as long as its fast loading and has the information/product on it I am looking for.

I have a few naff sites, with no fonts defined and basic layout etc. and they seem to do OK but not as much repeat business as the cosha ones.

[km8]

Originally posted by Ste
cosha

cosha???

[mibut]

"Cosha"
Hit you between the eyes...............

[Dynamoo]

The first golden rule to me is: "no site should be so ugly as to scare visitors away". I've seen many truly badly designed sites for both affiliates and merchants where the webmaster would have been better off just buying a template.

My second golden rule is "simple sites sell". It's very easy to go over-the-top with whizzy features that might look impressive, but actually make the site harder to use.

[accelerator]

My thinking is that a website should be as easy and fast to flip through as a magazine or catalogue. It's electronic paper folks ...

[Flightmapping]

Hmm,

My site would fit into the "over complex, but somehow gets a message across" category!

I did start with a few hyphenated-keyword-domain sites with little thought to branding, and my main site now earns around three times as much per click, compared to them.

However, it has also taken three times as long to get each visitor there, so there is often a balancing out.

Great point accelerator - and this also means that you can test the water with something simple, and work on branding later.

Personally though, I've found that this can also then mean a huge amount of work further down the line, so if I was doing it all again, I'd spend the first couple of months thinking the whole process through, and then get to work.

Ultimately, I'd consider this question in relation to your core objective:

Is it (a) to funnel as many people through your site(s) as possible to pick up the first affiliate income opportunity going, or

(b) to provide some useful information which may get users coming back or telling others, and then to add revenue streams off the back of this.

Or to put it simply - are you the destination, or the road used to get there?

[netearnings]

IMHO sites that are fairly basic and easy to navigate are the most profitable. Avoid flashing banners and definately no sound..

[Dynamoo]

netearnings, darned right there!

No sound.. ever. No fancy animations. Another good saying.. KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Flightmapping - well, I don't think your site quite fits into a normal affiliate category! I don't think it would work so well without Flash!

[Flightmapping]

Dynamoo,

No, I don't think it could. However, take away the maps, and you still have a normal affiliate web site IMHO. My comment was more in regards to the way I developed it, namely the fact it's been done totally organically so far. Now I'm finally getting round to building a database, I'm realising what a mammoth task I have set myself, but it should be a worthwhile project in the long run.

James

[stevenm]

Flightmapping...your site *doesn't* run on a database? I dread to think of the work involved in implementing that at this stage!

Steven
--
Virtual Cards UK
http://www.virtualcards.co.uk