What are customers preferring, a hosting webpage that is filled with graphics and options and looks awesome or a very simple and fast loading page. What are the customers usually going for?

If I was a customer and I was surfing for a web host... I'd go for information most of all. If I was interested in a particular host, I'd spend hours at their web site reading every single little thing that was put on there... basically because it reflects their work and I want to see how meticulous they are...

Fancy graphics might impress me, depending on how they've used it... but if the site isn't informative or has mistakes in it, I'd look for another host.

Good luck

I'd actually look for both, well, in a way.

The information and how it is presented is the most important thing. It has to be professional. Also, the design says something. If the design is terrible/poor navigation, how many people will actually stay long enough to read the information, no matter how professional it seems.

As well as loading times. If you're on a 56k, you'd hate to sit there for a long time while the page loads.

It depends, what is the page about. Is it image web page with some main informations of the business or is it hosting like business page where you mostly look for informations. But it's the same as everywhere - the first 2 sec are deciding.

I agree, it depends on what it's about. White space gives less clutter and draws your attention to the product or main idea. But you only have seconds to grab their attention and make them look more.

A webhost can have a slow loading site?

Clear information and then beautification.

When I'm looking for a host I do want to make sure the host has a nice looking presentable website, but most importantly what I look for is depth within the website. For example do they have community forums. Do they have a detailed FAQ.

Graphics are nice, unless it is just a facade

Picking between the two is hard, they are both extremely important, all websites trying to sell something should have both.

Originally posted by IncognitoNetworks
Picking between the two is hard, they are both extremely important, all websites trying to sell something should have both.

That was the best answer... The problem is that so many companies, not just in the hosting industry, have only one or the other. You need to have a professional design, including good information that loads quickly for the web site visitor. Your design is a powerful tool because it can grab someone's attention but it can also influence the potential customers' shopping behavior. Bottom line, if you want to maximize your success as a business owner, you need it all. :)

A good combination of both is required to reach as much potential clients as possible.

It's not impossible to have a nice looking site that loads pretty fast and has well organized contents.

If you must rank one as being more important than the other, information wins every time. Hosting is a technical industry. Ultimately, the important components are 1) are the servers reliable, 2) am I getting the resources I need, 3) are these considerations and the expected level of customer service worth the price (that's pretty general - there's more to it than that, but you get the point). If you don't appeal to a potential customer on these levels, I don't care how pretty your site is. You don't get the business. That doesn't just mean having everything in place a customer would want. It means communicating it well!

Are looks important? Well yeah! Not only are looks part of your marketing message, they play into a site's functionality as well. Icons guide people, different levels of navigation are visually represented in certain ways, etc.

But, a crappy looking site with the right content can get more customers than the world's slickest site that doesn't communicate well. I can think of a couple very big server/hosting companies that have proven this point in very big ways! (no names please - there's no need to bash sites here)

Don't forget that you can actually have a website that looks awesome (heh, funny thing - define awesome...) and still loads pretty fast - being in the webdesign industry, I know.

the_pm is right. I know this one webhosting company that has the crappiest site ever, pretty much 1999 or so. Believe it or not, they are doing really good, have some 10 - 20 signups each day which is, I believe, very nice for a small company like that...

Looks can be deceiving; Content is the king!

aaneta,

I think what has happened here is that people think that a Website with great looks and a Website that loads fast and is full of information are two different things.

In fact, done right, they are not. It is perectly viable to have a Website that looks great yet loads fast and has plenty of information.

Like others have said though, if you do have to distinguish between the two, information wins hands down.

Originally posted by innovationhosting
aaneta,

I think what has happened here is that people think that a Website with great looks and a Website that loads fast and is full of information are two different things.

In fact, done right, they are not. It is perectly viable to have a Website that looks great yet loads fast and has plenty of information.

Like others have said though, if you do have to distinguish between the two, information wins hands down.

The pool was originally posted because I was trying to figure out what should I do with my website . The initial design was very simmilar to google's design, but hundreds of hosting- resseler- sites- with- simmilar- templates made my friend (graphical-designer) to tell me "your site doesn't look like a hosting site".

However, now, I agree with you, I've succeeded making my site fast to load fast and still looks good for the price of 10kb / page (simple logo and small images) . So it is achievable.

Both are needed. A website can look great without being really graphic intensive, and if the information is good, you satisfy both.

Websites that are super graphic intensive and use a ton of flash and javascript and animated gifs.. I will not even start to read the content, I will just take one look at it, then close my browser and never come back again.

I think the content is more important than the look but its always best to find a happy medium. :)