Sidebars Are Very Important
Keep that baby clean! Your blog sidebars should not look like someone just vomited a lot of information and placed it all in a 300px by 8000px spot. Readers do not need to know about every fan girl team you are holding dear to your heart, along with your reading piles, challenges, pledges, groups, hot sexy of the day, bog roll, grab my 500 pictures, along with sponsors etc. This area is meant to show off your social links, posts you want to showcase, advertising and other pertinent information that is portrayed in a clean and efficient manner for easy user navigation. If there is too much on there, users will avoid looking at it and you have done yourself a disservice, because they could have gleaned a lot of REAL info from that area.
Hierarchy is Key
What actions and information do you want your readers to learn/read first? Make a list and prioritize your sidebars from that list.
Example:
- Follow via RSS
- Be able to search my archives for information
- View my advertisers
- Follow via a Reader of my choice
- Highlight these posts
- Giveaway 1
- Giveaway 2
- Blogging How Two etc
- Networking
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I’m not gonna lie, I struggle with this. I try and keep it as clean as possible. But damn if I don’t see a sloppy sidebar and IMMEDIATELY get off the page. Sorry!
And now I just remembered I need to clean up my sidebar. LOL.
Definitely agree! I think little makes it big. I guess when it’s more it does make it stand out and all, but in a way where some wanna run away! When I first started blogging I had trouble thinking what to put there, but as time passed it became easier and easier to know what should go in your sidebar and what shouldn’t.
everytime I see a post about side bars I feel like they are talking about me. I swear I try.
I tried to say it more politely on Twitter, and you called me passive aggressive for it, so here’s the less “nice” version: Why should a reader follow a tip that you don’t follow yourself? I see no RSS option and your mailing list subscription option is quite a ways down the page.
I totally suffer from Cluttered Sidebars Syndrome, though I’m trying to make them cleaner… by falling into Cluttered Footer Syndrome, but hey, if people get to the footer then some random stuff is a cool way to part ways, lol. Right?… Not, I know. It’s a working progress, let’s say.
I blame all of the cool things I could show off, I mean, how to resist them, you know? I suck at resisting things. Like I have 3 different Facebook thingies, badge&like buttons. I KNOW I don’t need more then one, lol, not all 3. And yet there they are in all their resplendent glory… You get this need to share stuff, at least I do, like what am I reading now, what did I read lately, what’s gonna happen that’s cool… I know my readers already know what I’ve read lately if they read the blog, and if they don’t then they might not really be curious about it either, and yet… all those snazzy gadgets on Goodreads and places that I can use… am a total gadgets nerd, can’t help it
Your post came like a cry of help from my sidebar&footer, “Free us!” they scream, lol.
*runs off to take down more stuff*
LOL I think we’re twins.
My sidebar needs major cleanup. I do tweak it from time to time but I have a hard time letting go. I want everything to stay. I’m such a hoarder. Sigh. I think my sidebars will never be as neat as they ideally should be.
I like to think of my sidebar as “mostly clean”, but it’s a constant work in progress since I’m always trying to get it MORE clean. It seems like “clean up sidebar. again.” is always on my blog to-do list, haha. But yeah, I think it’s very important. Not only is it extremely distracting (which detracts from your content), it slows down your load times. Neither of those things is going to help attract any readers.
I love your suggestions. I will have to see if my side bars are clean or not. I think so.