There has been a lot of chatter today about what should be placed in blog sidebars. It apparently all started with BlogSEO’s Top 10 sidebar must-haves. Personally, I agree with a number of the points and am working on developing them personally. There are, however, a few things that I wouldn’t quite agree with [completely].
BlogSEO’s article demonstrates that the main issue is for search engine placement. So we need to keep that in mind. And if the purpose of a blog is to develop clientele (which it should be), it’s important to also concentrate on usability factors that affect your particular target audience.
Their Top 10 list includes:
- RSS Button
- Your Other Projects/Blogs
- Short About Section
- Contact Info
- Most Popular Posts
- Blog Categories
- Recent Comments
- Blogroll
- Archives
- Site Search
Again, I think this is a good list. What I would change is the implementation of blogrolling and archives. Darren Rowse at ProBlogger also has a few different ideas you might want to check out.
Sidebar Blogrolls
Blogrolls are like bookmarks that I formerly managed in my browser. Eventually they just get long, unwieldy, and lose it’s original purpose of revisiting the other site. Also from an SEO standpoint, the quanity of links probably gives very little benefit to the receiving site. Because of this, I am in the process of changing how I present my blogroll.
Instead of listing whatever hundreds of links I may have as part of my sidebar. It will be on a categorized link page with descriptions of each link. This page will be linked from my sidebar as “See everyone on my blogroll” or something to that effect.
My sidebar blogroll will be more like what I have currently labeled as “CyberStar Blogs.” This is a random display of just a few of the links that I have. The shorter list helps to:
- Clean up the sidebar
- Provide a wee-bit of power to the outgoing link
- Provide new sites to review with every page visit
Sidebar Archives
Archives are definitely a good SE-friendly feature. However, categorical links provide more structure for search engines ensuring topical relevancy. From a visitor standpoint, picking-n-clicking a category seems to be generally more intuitive. Whether the search engine reaches a page through archives or through a category link, the robot will still get there. My vote:
- Dump the sidebar archives
- Develop structured categories
Me in the Sidebar
I wouldn’t necessarily change this, but I thought I point out a concept I liked. Andrew Watson of Changing Way uses a nifty system called Squidoo to externally host is profile. If you have multiple blogs, this is a nice approach because of
- Centralized profile management
- Cross-selling opportunities (links to other blogs or sites)
There are probably a few other good reasons to externally host your profile, but those are the ones that really caught my attention.
Do you have a Top 10 list or have comments on what should be in the sidebar? Let me know and post a comment.
Disclaimer
Now for my disclaimer (which probably should have been placed at the top)… I’m currently implementing these ideas, but haven’t completed them yet. I use WordPress and am considering developing a custom plugin to do what I suggested above.
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