After 10 years i can tell that...

I agree.
But it helps alot when your content sucks

I kind of agree with you. Design isn't everything..I think honestly when it comes down to it in the adult biz you are right, Content is King....However, your design should be good enough that visitors can navigate around easily and browse through all of that content.

Exactly, it is important for a site to be functional, but pretty is a far lower priority (unless you want to sell the site)

design matters:
usability
layout
size of call to action buttons
flow
speed

all matter. If you dont find different you are doing it wrong. Above all testing tells the tale. There wouldnt be a different in stats if nothing mattered.

things spinning and looking cool do not matter.

facebook slaughtered myspace because of design.

Simple, basic design is often better ... look at the huge popularity of CraigsList (ok, that one could use a little updating, but it just works), The Drudge Report (a near perfect design for what it's used for), and Wikipedia.

Sites choke-full of flash and javascript keep the web designers busy - yeah, I know they've got to make a living, but all the extra nonsense (and that often is what it is) comes at a cost to both website owners (more money and stuff to fix) and visitors...

Slowness and flakyness; often lack of functionality compared to an older design - Google's Picasa is a prime example of that - their most recent chages degraded image zoom for many people. Weather Underground's most recent updates - so bad with so many complaints they've kept the old design active on a separate sub-domain. And Slashdot, much the same thing - many users stick with the older "classic" site, since it at least still runs half-way decent.

And YouTube's design changes - wow, what a mess with many users with lots of videos furious about "Load More" button and all the clicking. And many viewers frustrated about playback resolution automatically changing (in the previous version, the user had total control) when they go from viewing in a window to full-screen.

Rambling on, but anyways, there's a lot to be said for the K.I.S.S. principle - solid, updated content will keep visitors coming back for more assuming they can get to it without getting blocked / frustrated by all the flashy web design nonsense.

Ron

Why did it take 10 years?

If I had ever thought that designed mattered then I would have never made a
website 10 years ago.

Did you used to do site approval for Adult check?

Adult Check rejected one of my sites because I had text links instead of
buttons for navigation.
I took the same content and built a pay site with it and never heard from them again.

I have a page, thats a simple white page with a few lines of text, and a ENTER text link.

Converts at 1:400

all the design BS is for affiliates

It took you pretty long to figure this out

design is much more important in mainstream.

Speed is important, slow websites will piss potential buyers off.

Bingo.

Now it starts to make sense why so many have horrible ratios.

exactly design matters :0)