As a blog consultant I do a lot of critiquing. You can see some of the public critiques here. Surprisingly, some of the most common mistakes happen in the sidebar.
I think the reason is when people are in “blogging mode” they focus on content, content, content. Yes, the posts are vitally important, but as readers we have become accustomed to looking in the sidebar for certain items. When they are not there, well, we feel lost.
Here are the five items your sidebar has to feature prominently, in priority order:
- RSS Feed Link - Where do you look for the feed link when you see a new blog? Where is your blog feed link? Yes, as an additional location have the feed link under each post, but you absolutely have to have it in your sidebar, above the fold. Bonus points for doubling up both a text link and the traditional RSS graphic button.
- Email subscription option – At least half my subscribers sign up via email. Putting an email form, or at least a link, could well boost your subscriber count by a large percentage.
- Flagship Content - To get a flavor for what a blog is about we will look to see what there is to read. You need flagship content, cornerstone, ever green or whatever you want to call it. Put your best stuff, or popular links, right in the sidebar with a title that lets readers know what they are.
- About snippet - When I read a new blog I want to know what the blog is about, who it is by and why I should care. I particularly like when I can put a face to the name. Link through to your full about page.
- Categories – Yes, I have put categories last, but they are important if done correctly. Best to use category names that beg to be clicked, mean something to the reader and even better also contain some searchable phrase. Consider how many categories called “misc” or “other” you see!
It could be you do have some of these things in your top navigation, which is great if they are prominent, I would just argue the sidebar is where you expect to find them. Just don’t hide them in your footer.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments …
Chris, I agree with you post. I don't have a link to my about page from the sidebar. I think I should it soon.
I would also recommend the starters to install the Top Commentators in the sidebar because it will increase the comments and discussion in the blog and hence form a better community.
Recent Posts maybe a good addon to fill the sidebar which will also be helpful at times. The new blog reader might surf the recent posts easily from the sidebar.
Great post,
I'll add a link to this on our BloggerWanted.com resources page.
Marcel
Great post. I agree with all of these items. I have been looking for a top commentators widget but have not found one yet. I don't want to have to insert any code. Do you know of one?
@Fred: You won't be able to find one that doesn't involve adding code unless you have widgets enabled in which case you *may* be able to. Either way it's not all that hard to add a small bit of JS/PHP or whatever is required.
If you've never done it before it could be a nice reason to try and learn a bit about the code running your blog.
Chris: Interesting that you mention an about section. It's not something I personally feel the need to see on the front page. I'm perfectly happy clicking through to an about page. I absolutely hate it though if they don't have a picture up.
I'll like to see who's blogging!
Great post you got here. I agree with all of these items. I am looking for a top commentators widget but yet to be found.
I use separate page for "about" and never miss "blog roll" in my sidebar. anyways nice article
-Nish
About the categories, I find many bloggers have veered off their niches. You always find these two categories which are unrelated to their blogs: "Rambling" and "Humor". The worst is the so-called "Uncategorized"!
Yes, I know in the first place that all of these should be in the sidebar but what I find difficult in doing is that the space I need for them.
For example, if you look at my blog, I don't have links for my popular posts or so to say, corner posts. What I am facing is that the narrow sidebars of mine won't allow me to fit it in because the titles of my post is just too long for a narrow sidebar.
If I were to move down my popular posts into the wider sidebar below, I guess it will be the same as useless because no one will ever show their best thing at the backdoor right?
Still in search for a better theme or maybe a customisation will be carried out soon.
I have all of those bar the About snippet.
Tip: Be sure to make your best content stand out, use images that attract the eye.
I also think that links to other services(FaceBook,MySpace) are pretty handy for user based advertising.
I definately need to add an about intro here…and an email form might help increase subscriptions too. Good tips
I’m surprised you didn’t mention a search form. I rarely revisit a site if it makes me jump through hoops to find stuff.
I am a bit wary of top comments plugins because it can make the comment area into a quantity competition
Search can be useful but most readers would look for those 5 other things first, plus many themes have the search already embedded. If not I would definitely include a search, and some other things like feed count etc etc, but my priority would be what I listed
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Stephanie
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thanks, glad you like the site
thanks for the GREAT post! Very useful…
This could be considered heresy to some, but I strongly feel like these 5 things are just about the ONLY things that should be in your sidebar. There are very, VERY few sidebar widgets I've ever seen that were actually useful to the reader. On my own site, I have these 5 things and a search box in my sidebar, and that's it…you should've seen the clutter on my previous design.
Something to consider when you start adding random widgets…would my readers ever use this or is it just interesting to me?
Very great resource! I'm in the process of revamping the online social media strategy of a mobile applications provider and mobile marketing agency and this will definitely help tighten up our blog.
Jon Boyle
Does anyone know of a popular posts plugin that works well? I've tried the popularity cotnest one (the most popular, apparently, pardun the pun), but it does all sorts of weird things to my sidebar when I use it. Any suggestions?
Thanks, Chris! This is really helping us get organized. Our sidebars just kind of happened. Now we know what people are looking for and we'll place those things higher up. Thanks again for the guidance! Bob and Anna Bassett
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