Does it matter what my webpage looks like?
Q: "Traffic Generation: Appearance and Optimization" - Does it matter what my webpage looks like when it comes to generating traffic and getting ranked well in Google?
A: Yes on both counts, but perhaps not necessarily in the way you might think. As far as generating human traffic, the aesthetics of a webpage are obviously quite important. If you want someone to become a return visitor to your site and possibly provide you with an endorsement of your site's content in the form of a link to you, the site needs to look good. It improves the user experience and it makes a good, lasting impression on your visitors.
Does this mean you have to be a web designer yourself? Not at all! You always have the option of hiring a web development company to design your site for you. Alternately, if you're using a program like Dreamweaver to design your site, you can find tons of free-to-use, premade templates on the net to use as the basis of an aesthetically pleasing site. Finally, many hosting services will offer website templates as part of their hosting packages, too. You've got plenty of options for making an attractive site that require little to no techincal know-how.
As far as getting ranked well in Google, how your site looks does matter, as well. The aesthetics have a minimal affect here. They will peripherally assist you in getting your site ranked well, because a site that's easy on the eye is likely to elicit a more positive response from its visitors. This leads to more positive comments on the Internet and more links to the site, which in turn leads to a higher Google ranking.
Perhaps the biggest way your site's design can affect your Google ranking is through search engine optimization, though. Remember how we talked about niching last time to keep your site filled with densely-used, tightly-focused keywords? Well, your site design can help with your keyword density. By using well-written code that gets rid of unnecessary HTML nonsense, you can have a page that looks good but doesn't have a lot of garbage HTML code in it, which will help improve your keyword density. Higher keyword density, in turn, leads to higher rankings in your niche.
So, yes, your site's look does matter, in a lot of different ways. Take the time to get it right, and don't be afraid to hire a developer if you need to. This is a part of any Internet marketing venture that you do not want to neglect.