Welcome to the eighth episode of Web3 Marketing Debate - an intense debate where we discuss content versus design. 

The debate of Content versus Design is much like the chicken and the egg scenario - which comes first and which is more important?

James and Joseph take on an intense debate on which is more important for a business, particularly on landing pages; the content or design. This opens up various questions about what is more important to your own brand and how you measure success. 

Poor design can hinder your audience impressions of you, but poorly thought out content is what will break or break a sale. All looks, no leverage.

TRANSCRIPT

James Banks:
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Web3 Marketing Debate Show. I'm your host, James Banks.

Joseph Chesterton:
And I'm your host, Joseph Chesterton.

James Banks:
And today we'll be discussing... We'll be debating more like it, content versus design, which one's better, which one is more valuable. So for this debate, I'll be jumping into the design side of the debate.

Joseph Chesterton:
I will be on the content side.

James Banks:
All right, well, let's kick things off. So Joseph, tell me why is content superior or why is it more important for businesses to think about, to spend time, effort, energy and resource in as opposed to design?

Joseph Chesterton:
Content versus design I would say is almost chicken before the egg. You can't have good design without content. So if we're talking about a website, every page on a website needs content. Sure you can put the design into the website, but without text on the page then it's almost probably going to be useless. I would argue that content is very important for businesses.

When people search for your business, they probably go to Google, if they aren't sure of your brand. Google indexes content, it doesn't index your design. So content is what is most important in that aspect for SEO as well, or to rank highly in search.

My third point would be content helps people buy. You could have a beautiful design, but without content or actual context of the page by the text, then most likely people won't buy from you. So those are my three points on why content is most important. What do you have to say to that?

James Banks:
Well, I think it's one of those ones you write about chicken before the egg. How can you craft copy and content when you visually have got no idea what the end outcome is going to look like? 

I think just to clarify for our listeners, we're talking about in the case of creating a new website or a landing page or something that's going to go online for you to put in front of your audience. 

It makes it very difficult to be able to contextualise what content you actually need to put on the page when you've got no bearing or understanding of visually how this thing is going to look, or what the application is.

I think just going to your point as well on search engine optimization, I don't think you're correct in saying that design isn't a factor, it is. And specifically when we break that down, what is design? It's a great user experience. It's great user interface practices. It's being able to create something that's both appealing and on-brand point, that communicates your brand values. 

It effectively engages and talks to your audience and pulls them in and magnetises them into one to find out more. And these are the types of things, particularly on the user experience side that Google is actively looking for and policing as part of the algorithm. 

So design still has its importance of ensuring that not only can you create an effective web experience, but you can also create one that ranks well in search.

But ultimately if we look at both content and design, ‘what is more valuable’, why in your opinion do you believe content is more valuable as opposed to design, Joseph?

Joseph Chesterton:
Well, if you're getting technical on the certain aspects of search, then sure you could justify it either way, but when it comes to the actual content, it's more valuable.

James Banks:
This isn't much of a debate.

Joseph Chesterton:
When you talk ‘value’, are you talking about the cost of content versus design or return of content versus design? Because if you were to buy content versus buy design, you can put a buy price tag on design whereas content is often very undervalued. 

Like some of the biggest brands in the world spend tens or even hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on their brand and logo. Whereas I'm pretty sure they wouldn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the actual texts or content that they put on their pages.

James Banks:
There's a lot of starving copywriters out there Joseph, it goes both ways.

Joseph Chesterton:
That's right. But what it is on a page is what will make or break a sale. 

Sure, the design comes into play but when it comes to actual people buying from you on your website, then chances are they will consume the content on your site. 

That's arguably the most valuable thing on your website. What do you have to say to that, James?

James Banks:
Well, I think the value is very intrinsic and you can't honestly put an exact dollar value to a single word or a design. Of course, we all know what the value of bad content and bad design looks like, which is an exercise that no business ever wants to go down. 

But great copy and great content are not uncommon for someone that knows how to craft high converting sales copy that charge $20,000 plus for a sales page.

On the flip side, great designers can charge tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars just to design a page because when it gets to the point of the intangibility of these outcomes, you can't necessarily directly connect it to a dollar value, but ultimately both are of extremely high importance. 

And I agree with you on the point that businesses are typically greatly undervalued what good design and good content will do for a business, many businesses out there, and I'll even argue our business would say that great design and great content, there's nothing more paramount in what we do for our marketing and advertising efforts, other than great design and great content.

Ultimately how we approach things here at Web3 is a little biased with this debate, but we actually take the content-first approach, not mobile-first or design first or functionality first, but content first. Why do we do that? 

We personally believe that content is the most valuable thing that you can produce and put online. Content is ultimately queen, and design I'd say is very closely followed in that scenario. 

With content and design, the design should mould and work with the content to produce and display it in the most engaging way, shape and form as possible.

Getting down into the nitty-gritty. You could have a landing page where you have designed it to have say, a three stacked headline, but after the content has been created it turns out that a more effective headline-only needs two lines. So things like that, then you have to go back and change the design, it actually can be a very inefficient process if you do this at scale. 

Hence, why creating the best possible content regardless of constraints of design is the way in which we approach things. The design then emphasises the content, giving it the best chance of it performing its objectives and serving the goals that it needs to serve and achieve for the business.

So with that said, Joseph, is there anything else you wanted to add to this debate?

Joseph Chesterton:
As far as which one produces the best results from straight money in the bank, ROI point of view, content I would argue would win, but it's hard to put an ROI on it and it's very often undervalued.

A lot of smaller businesses, especially, that come to us often believe that they can write their own content, which in some cases they can, but when it comes to actually writing it in a way that is conversion-focused for the correct target market rather than writing it from a business owner point of view. 

When you do write content, it has to be targeted and it has to be crafted for what the content is being written for. So as long as that is considered, then you will get good results from the content. And then I guess design comes in after that and is what helps convert and sell.

James Banks:
Absolutely. And not to undervalue the importance of excellent design. We certainly don't take any shortcuts with design, even though we do take a content-first approach here at Web3 but anyway. 

With that said and done, we'll wrap up another episode of the Marketing Debate Show. Thank you so much for tuning in and dial in next time for our next episode, which will be all about data-driven versus creative marketing. Who will win? 

We will see until then, have a great day. We'll talk to y'all soon.