This morning as I walked into my portico, I was once again mesmerized by the beauty of my brand new Honda – a black sedan with alloys and chrome all over it. Then a thought struck me. Why do I consider this car beautiful? Where does the beauty actually come from? This car model did not even exist a few years back. A few decades ago when cars were released by companies like Mercedes and BMW, they did not look beautiful at all, relative to our present perspective. In those days, however, people found these cars very beautiful. How can this be? We are still the same, right? How can one object be beautiful at one point of time and not so nice at another?
The answer to this question came to me in a flash. True beauty is more than skin deep. Beauty is what is on the inside, not what meets the eye. In earlier years, those ‘old’ cars were the most advanced cars ever released. No matter what the external appearance, we believed the cars were beautiful due to the performance and price of the cars. Now that those cars are outdated and have been replaced by better cars in the market, their external appearance has become less appealing to us. The cars that will be released in a few decades from now, no matter how strange they look, will be perceived as beautiful because they will run faster, smoother and on cleaner fuel than our present generation of cars. Beauty is not what we see, but rather what we feel.
By now you must be wondering why I am posting such thoughts in a business blog. I decided to write about these ideas as I pondered the answer to the question: Does my blog look good enough, or could it be better!? Many new web-masters worry a lot about how a blog looks when it is first set up. We think that people will not read our blog if it does not have the best look and design. Yet no matter how many days one spends designing and tweaking the placements of different objects in a blog, one can never be satisfied. Sooner or later, the web master must stop worrying about the design – and this stopping point comes where he realizes that design does not matter at all. If the website serves a good purpose, our minds will perceive it as beautiful.
So friends, do not spend too much time worrying about how your blog or website looks. Instead, care about what the blog does. Beauty lies in its purpose. If your blog provides valuable content and improves people’s lives, it is an attractive blog. That said, you should still place importance on the basics of a good blog layout. What I want to communicate is that you should not worry extensively about how your blog looks. Do not compare two designs and pull your hair out over which one looks better. I have made those mistakes, and I hope you don’t do the same. Good luck!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I appreciate your post. I have recently started a new blog and soon became concerned with it’s appearance. I noticed I have spent more time on the design rather than content. I have veered slightly off track with this distraction. I am glad to hear that I am not alone in this.
Good post, that’s funny because your talking about me, I could spend hours tweaking or just looking for the perfect theme, kinda disturbing actually. But your absolutely right, if you provide quality content everything else will take care of itself. Time should be spent on content and traffic generation.
Peace, Prosperity & Internet Marketing
I have to agree to disagree here… Sure, you shouldn’t spend hours and days trying to decide which look to go for. But the look/image of your site should be indicative of its content, so it can be just as important.
It’s like turning up at a party. You are always judged by what you wear in a room full of strangers. First impressions COUNT. Especially in a medium where the visitor needs only to click away from you and never look back.
I’m mixed on this, really.
Modern cars rarely do anything for me. I find most of them boring. But show me a shiny car with a flame job from the 50s, or even better, a renovated car from the early 1900s… WOW.
Show me an ugly car, and you’ll have to work extra hard to sell me on its features. “Yeah, it drives real smooth, it’s safer in a crash, it gets great gas mileage… it’s still butt ugly, though. What else you got?”
If I’m scuzzed out, I don’t want to go outside or do much of anything. I feel like a loser. If I dress up nice, I feel confident, happier, and more willing to do stuff. Appearances matter.
I try not to stress too much over how my websites and blogs look, but that doesn’t mean appearance isn’t important. What I’ve learned is that if I like the way my website looks, I enjoy updating it more. If I’m unhappy with its appearance, I’m more likely to avoid it. Design isn’t everything, and you shouldn’t obsess over it to the point of neglecting your content, but it’s still an important component.
Maybe the best thing is to hire a professional to make an awesome design. No fussing, no fretting, no wasting valuable time… just gotta have the money to spend.