I think following two points, as raised in the first post by Ganeshn, require some more discussion.
QUOTE
#1Providing what your visitors want to see.
QUOTE
#2They are not looking for fancy dancing graphics and cool flash designs. They are looking for information.
So far as #1 is concerned, it is absolutely correct to say that a good webpublisher offers only what the visitors want to see.
Now let us come to the Point#2. The visitors are looking for information, and it is also correct. But the information may not compulsorily be textual always as a rule. It may also be an image or graphics design that they are looking for.
Based on that, I have tried to classify websites into three categories.
1) Sites that provide textual information.
2) Sites that provide information by means of images and graphics.
3) A blending of the above two category.
Sites that provide textual information:These are the websites whose webpages contain mostly textual information.
Sites on SEO tools and techniques, sites that provide different Webhosting services, sites on tutorials on different subjects such as, scripting/programming languages, are good example of this category.
For example: Take a quick look at a good website that provides information on SEO toolset
Webconfs.com . And as per your expectation it contains only textual information. Needless to say, the visitors of this website never expect to see fancy scripts in this site as well.
A site containing tutorials on different programming and scripting languages like
Page Resource.com also contains mostly textual information, and for obvious reason, this site is also very much useful for its visitors.
2) Sites that provide information by means of images and graphics:These are the websites that rarely use textual content. Rather, they rely havily on images and graphics to convey the infomation to its visitors.
Although the number of websites belonging to this category is also large, but at present we can take the case of a site such as
Flower Pictures.net , containing thousands of pictures of flowers. Its visitors are, actually searching for picture of flowers ( for the reason only they can tell!) and not dull textual description of flowers!
Also we can take the case of
PopCap.com, a good games site, whose home page itself contains images of different games.
3) A blending of the above two categoryIt will be fair enough to say that a large number of websites are just keeping a balance between the textual information and images.
Just see this website on
West Bengal tourism. It contains images as well as textual information.
Sites relating to scientific publications, research works, field studies, medical and technical journals do not seem to have any other alternative means to explain and establish the concepts. These websites usually contain textual information with supporting images (Just like a good book!).
So, in fine, we can see that point#1 is the biggest factor for deciding the content of your webpages. You have to offer your visitor exactly what they want to see, be it textual content, images, fancy scripts or animations. But the top most priority should be given to relevance. It must go with the theme of your website and it must not be anything extra or odd that will annoy your visitors ( recall second post )!
Regards,
Sid
Reply
so just to keep my account active and running here is some really useful stuff I though you might be interested in! Its basically about some webmaster/designer tips. Keep these in mind when ever you are designing your site. It will prove very effective. This is through my personal advice.
I mentioned above will work for you. I will keep posting as soon as I recharge my internet account. I dont think that there is a penny left in my ISP account. 
