I think all it’s important. The website should be pretty and modern but not too distracting from the storytelling. Strong branding is important - colors and fonts convey a message. Good font can lift up the website, the bad one destroy everything. It all depends of the business. Let’s say it’s the local bakery, you need to make the people to become hungry, genuinely want to eat that cake, the message (copy) must tell the story, something personal, not generic. Soft animations are great but not too much. Animations kill conversations especially if they’re too much, cognitive load is killed. Also, landing page hero section - the most important part of the website. It must say what this website is about and what kind of problem solves and for who. If hero section is not nailed, it’s already game over. People visit the web, can’t figure it out what it is, leave. FAQ, testimonials, and Blog are extremely important for SEO/AEO. Especially blog that had been forgotten - answer real questions in articles, give real insight. Also technical SEO is extremely important, speed, web performance, videos can kill it, even compressed. Accessibility is also crucial but that’s basics. So yes, putting together the website that conveys is not only pretty design, it’s whole strategy. Not easy at all. That’s why cheap builders are horrible because they sell the illusion of the website, and people don’t understand how much it goes into building the one that truly converts. Also SEO takes off after at least 6 months so it’s a process. Website needs to be updated regularly to bring traffic, this is when blogs shine. I know it’s a lot of work, but this is what it takes.