BABB-4: Blog Sidebar Makeover
Today is Day 4 of the Be A Better Blogger series. We’re using the outline offered by Collis Ta’eed in his article titled 31 Days To Becoming A Better Blogger, and our topic for the day is:
Day 4. De-clutter your sidebar. If you have less in your sidebar, you can focus bigger chunks of attention on what’s really important (your feed link, categories and popular posts). Remove unnecessary widgets and put your blogroll and archives on their own dedicated page. It can also be a good idea to remove underperforming ads.
A little Sidebar Makeover to prevent Sidebar Takeover… 
Have you ever seen a blog that has so much junk in the sidebar that you can hardly focus on the content? Or what about those blogs that have 3 or 4 sidebars and a very narrow column for the actual posts? Its insanely distracting, and its usually too cluttered and unorganized to draw my attention to any one thing.
You know the blogs I’m talking about.
Its easy for that sidebar to get out of control. You add a cool widget. You add a necessary feature. You add another widget. You tweak this and include that, and before you know it you have a pretty junked up unorganized mess over there!
Take a moment to analyze your sidebar, and specifically from the perspective of a new visitor. What lends to the objective of your blog, and what distracts from it?
Your sidebar should offer the basics, of course: clear navigation, instructions for subscribing by email and RSS, links to current topics/discussions, and author info. Depending on how your blog is laid out, you may have separate navigation in your header or footer.
What about all the extras?
I love the idea of putting your blogroll on a separate page, which is what I have done here at ClickNewz (view). Removing widgets and promotions that arent performing well was another great suggestion. In fact, I recently removed BlogRush for that very reason.
It hasnt been that long ago that I updated my sidebar here at ClickNewz – removing several things, and replacing some with others. At the moment, I am pleased with how it appears and so I doubt I’ll make any new changes. Unless you have suggestions, of course –
Got questions or need feedback on your own sidebar? Leave them below!
Best,
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I agree with what you said, but it seems your sidebar should have at least enough “stuff” to fill the first screen. Perhaps relevant photos or other attractive low-content items could be used where you don’t use enough ads to fill the space.
Sure – but instead of Ads, you can fill the space with links to your best posts, category links, a brief bio, etc. Too much advertising can turn a visitor off – but a well structured sidebar that piques interest can encourage them to explore your site a bit deeper.
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
I have seen many sidebars way to full. What a great idea to clean up your sidebar. Thanks.
Hi Lynn! Quick question for you or anyone willing to answer since our blog use is sort of new (using wordpress used to use blogger). I read that you can create “pages” which I found in our admin area. Do you then make a text box and enter the url by hand or is there a way to link it up somewhere on the sidebar automatically?
Hope that makes sense
Thanks!
…. I should have added making additional pages like “About Us” and the extraneous stuff, including moving the blogroll, etc., that you speak of…
D.
Hi Diane,
In your WordPress dashboard, go to Manage > Pages and then “create a new page”. This will allow you to create any new pages you like.
I personally chose to create my own blog roll page and just add links manually. I used a bulleted list as you can see here: http://www.clicknewz.com/blog-roll/ . The “about us” page is usually set up with your theme, but if not you can create that one the same way.
Once you create those pages, view your blog and see if your theme automatically puts them in the navigation at the top or in the sidebar. If not you will want to add those links manually in your template.
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
Thanks a bunch and wow that was fast! I’m actually at my Tuesday volunteer “job” at our local ALS of Nevada, but once I get back to the office I’ll be checking this out
I really needed this one! So far I have made my archived posts into a drop-down box instead of a list on my side bar and shortened my blog roll and put it on a separate page.
I really like the way you list your blog roll individually and write a little blurb about each blog. That is next up on my to-do list.
I’m having trouble getting this one done. I’m in the process of customizing a new theme for my blog so I don’t want to update this sidebar. I’m trying to keep the new one uncluttered, but there’s a lot I want in it. I’ll just have to work harder on the “look.” Probably won’t get it done today.
With the tweak to the size of the RenRadio banner, my sidebar is pretty much the way I want it. I am still considering whether I want to continue with the random images. I like having them there but they take up a lot of space. May consider moving them even further down.
Seem like some people really do not care about the number of widgets and this tell on the page loading speed.
Great post! I have a few things I think I may remove from my sidebar.
Going to play devil’s advocate here for a minute….
I think I have a problem removing the blogroll from the navigation. Seems like taking a step backwards in SEO.One of the main reasons I like to exchange links with blogs is the number of backlinks you get automatically from them because they are like navigation exchanges. I think I would pass on an exchange with a blog who has their links on a “link page”. There’s no benefit for me, and I’d be giving them loads of links in return.
I guess that’s just me, but I’m wondering if freeing up a small amount of space is worth the risk moving your links like that.
You bring up a good point, Kara – but I’m not sure which is truly best SEO-wise. Sitewide links in the sidebar dont carry as much weight as a link in the content area of a relevant web page. Both ways you have dillution from the number of outgoing links… but with the separate page you have the advantage of the links being in the content area of the page.
Thoughts?
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
I’ve found that “link page” exchanges really don’t hold a lot of weight anymore, and navigation exchanges seem to benefit. I’ve made a point on some of my bigger sites to do more navigation exchanges, which seem to have a MUCH bigger impact than the link pages. I honestly think Google especially is paying closer attention to this.
But like you said it depends on the value of the page and the content to begin with. When links are in navigations though, they end up on more quality pages.
Just my thoughts.