Google has said very clearly that design is content. What does that mean? It means, simply, that you have to put just as much effort into design as you do into textual content. The reason is that your whole site is a total user experience, and keeping visitors happy and exploring your site is just as important to Google as the relevance of the content to the search (well, maybe not that important). The point is that you have to seamlessly integrate your design with your textual content, and that means hiring a designer who understands your content creation and development aims.
It is not just design that is content, it is also navigation, information architecture, responsive web design, and social media interaction. Everything that is part of how a user interacts with your site is content, and you cannot discount the importance of design anymore. A static website with great text and a shoddy design will fare poorer in the Google SERPs, because Google cares about how much visitors like your website’s overall aesthetic appeal, ease of navigation, and content presentation almost as much as they care about the textual content itself.
While the strength, relevance, and organization of the textual content is central to your battle for the top spot in the keywords you are targeting, you will certainly lose that battle if your content is not contained in the most pleasant and appropriate visual design. So, invest in a great design team when you are developing your textual content, and that textual content will go a whole lot further than it would all on its lonesome. If you cannot afford a great design, then just put up the textual content and hopefully it will increase your revenue to an extent that you can redesign.
