Sandcurves

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Does your blog's sidebar support your blog?  Here are a few questions you should be asking yourself:

• How fast is your site - do your sidebar widgets slow your blog down too much?
• Does your blog's sidebar design look good?
• Does it support your blogging goals?
• Is it useful to your readers? 

Just like a public notice board, you may starts to view the sidebar as the place to hang up the stuff you collect. 

You join a directory, a new button appears, join Twitter, a new widget, need money, Adsense appears… blogroll, kitten pictures, your boyfriend's face with an X written across it… and blood… an axe?… 

I'm guilty… well, not of killing lovers… I'm guilty of shoveling thing into my sidebar.  Soon the whole thing is ugly, slow, and so cluttered nobody even looks there anyway. 

If you don't fix it soon, nobody will be on your blog at all. 

Blog sidebar design - some thoughts on doing it right

First of all, how many sidebars do you want.  For me this was always a no-brainer - only one.  But looking around it's obvious that many a good blog works well with two, a few even three. 

On the flip side, there are some nice blogs, usually run by programmers, with no sidebars at all.  [some examples:  scratch-blog.appspot.com and chrisjean.com]

Do all your widgets match, or at least complement the overall look of your blog?  Give some thought to making the whole thing look good.  You want your blog to look professional, so don't be scared to get rid of some stuff. 

I see nothing wrong with experimentation.  Try different things, but take them away if they don't work for your blog. 

Hand in hand with design goes the usability.  When you design the sidebar, make sure that a user will be able to find, with ease, what they're looking for. 

Ask your mom if she can find the 'about' page, and see how long it takes her.  If you want to get really serious, how about taking your laptop to a coffee shop and asking a few people to find stuff on your site. 

Your blog's sidebar components

1. Subscription links - These are often in the form of a nice RSS image; like this --> .  Don't limit yourself to RSS.  Many people prefer email over RSS - including me.  It means we can manage all our incoming material in one way, and helps you be more organized. 

   Most important of all, you want to be sure the subscriptions are easy to find.  If you're blogging no doubt you'll want some followers - make it easy. 

   One idea that I'm thinking of trying is to have a 'subscription' page, where you can explain your subscription options and perhaps use it as a point to start an email list.  I'm strongly considering doing this myself. 

2. Navigation - If you want people to stick around your website for more than one blog post, give them some links to other pages they may want to visit. 

   I'd say the two most important would be having a good 'About' and 'Contact' page. 

   You also want to give visitors ways to find older blog posts, perhaps by category, recent posts or whatever way you feel is best to encourage people to read what you wrote before. 

3. Social media, bookmarking sites and blog directories - Unless you're famous outside of the blogging community, if you want traffic to your blog, you'll have to put your stuff out there.  Since the lines blur on what is precisely social media, bookmarking sites and blog directories, I'll cover them together. 

   You'll also want your visitors to connect with you through social media as an additional way to keep people coming back, and to build up a community around your blog. 

   You may want to use directories and bookmarking mainly for SEO, but often end up having to put a link back to those sites in your blog.  With directories these are usually super ugly.  But if you're looking for that first Google Page Rank, if that matters to you, these directories are certainly an easy way to do it. 

   There are so many ways to do this, from simple text links, to full on widgets.  Consider carefully which sites are the most important and what information is important to display.  A widget with updates may be just the thing you need. 

   For example, if your twitter updates are really witty and people follow you just to see what you're going to say, then you may want a little twitter widget in your sidebar, but don't just stick it there without good reason. 

   Understand what your plan is and decide what works for your blog.  When in doubt, leave stuff out. 

4. A Mini 'About' gives visitors a quick view of what the blog is about.  I personally love it when a blog has one, but you need to keep it short, and link through to your main about page. 

   Usually these include a small picture of the blogger and at most a couple lines of info. 

   A good example is a site I started visiting recently, www.wakeupcloud.com. 

5. Blogroll - blogrolls were almost a part of what blogs were at one stage, but with things like link farms, the ideas has become less popular.  I believe that Google has become increasingly skeptical of a blogroll that's just a list of links. 

   But that is not to say you shouldn't have one.  Unless you've hit the 'Copyblogger' big time, you need to make some friends in the blogging world, and nothing is nicer than having your site linked to by someone else. 

   I'll rather have a blogroll or links page separate from my main page, and give a little more detail about each site I list.  Every site I link to is really something I find interesting and visit frequently. 

6. Ads - I've run Adsense on a number of blogs (yes, even here in a previous incarnation of Sandcurves).  If I continued with my Adsense campaign and lived a long, long life, I'd have made enough money to pay for coffee for everyone at my funeral. 

   I don't want to discuss monetization yet, but I will say one thing - if you just slap on some ads, you're not going to make a penny unless you have some monster traffic.  Simple as that. 

   I'm talking to myself here as much as anyone else:  Don't put ugly ads in your sidebar. 

7. Fluff and stuff - If you've gone through this list, you probably won't have room for much more in your sidebar anyway.  Many blogs still have music, animated ponies that sparkle… stuff like that. 

   In some cases, a good video can be very good, and a nice way to link to your video Chanel, if that's something you'd like to do.  Just make sure it doesn't interrupt someone busy reading your blog posts.  If you want an example of awesome use of a video in a sidebar, have a look here:  On Else's Review Blog she has a great example of using a video as part of her sidebar. 
   
        Here's a direct link to that video | "Social Media Revolution 2(Refresh)" - watch it, it's a good one

   If your blog's sidebar starts to play me Céline Dion music, I'll never, ever visit your blog again.  I know my Led Zeppelin is going to do the same for you. 

   I often browse for games or "things to do" sites for my kids, and they find flashy widgets very awesome.  I don't!  If you're not writing for preschoolers, it's likely that your readers don't either. 

   Consider very carefully what widgets and funny things you put in your sidebar. 

Ultimately, a good sidebar looks good, and helps with your blogging goals and connect to your community.  It's an important part of crafting a meaningful blog. 

Have you got any insight into building a beautiful, usable and relevant sidebar?  Do you love your blog sidebar widgets?  Or do you have any questions.  Let me know in the comments…

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