Though the phrase “content is King” is arguably the golden rule for web design, and especially blogging, having a bulging blogroll, or a sidebar jammed with links for competitions and advertisements, is not very easy on the eye.
This can make reading your blog less appealing, as it can make it harder reading for your readership, and as the blogsphere is vast, it is easy for a reader to go elsewhere, even if you have connected with them through the course of your blog.
So here are some tips for de-cluttering your sidebar, and the reasons behind the thinking.
Often, material has become outdated, or obsolete, and so it must be removed. Check that all advertisements of any kind are still work, and if they do work, check that what is on offer is still valid. Ditch what you do not need as this is now redundant. Remember once this is done, you can replace with it a valid advertisement.
It is essential that your blogroll does not take up the whole screen. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little, but if your blogroll is massive, the chances are that you have been blogging for several months or years. This being the case it is highly likely that quite a few of your blogs are now defunct. Whiz through your work and remove anything that is no longer relevant from your blogroll.
On the same theme, you can always create a helpful links page, and put many of your blogroll links on it. This way, they can be easily structured to make it easy for a reader to see and find the blog that they want to read. It also helps to de-clutter the sidebar, which is always a winner on the main page, as this is the business end of your blog.
By tweaking your Wordpress theme you can easily reduce the links shown on the main page, by replacing your regular links display code with this one:
wp_list_bookmarks(‘orderby=rand&limit=10′)
This will limit the amount of links to ten, and therefore de-clutters the sidebar quite nicely. If you want any further information on this tip, see the Wordpress codex.
Please note, this will not work if you are using widgets, but there is a links management widget that will more or less do the same thing, that you can download.
Another tip for de-cluttering the sidebar, is to prioritize what is important, and make it more noticeable to your readers than the less important items. This may sound obvious, but as time goes on the sidebar is just jammed full of everything, and this makes sifting through it hard work. Try and make sure that the sidebar is ordered, and presentable.
Something you might want to consider, is that the sidebar has a purpose, and that if you have something in it because it is “cute”, then it should go. No reader is going to want to see something “cute”, and will be looking for more relevant information.
It is good practice to ask yourself what purpose does this serve before putting something on your sidebar. Remember that blogs are essentially for your readers, and it is with this view point in mind that you should approach the appearance of your blog.
It is a good idea to look at de-cluttering your sidebar every few months, or at the very least once a year. Remember the cluttering doesn’t happen straight away, but over a period of time in which, you have probably got at least thirty percent irrelevant content jammed into your sidebar.
If you follow these tips for de-cluttering your sidebar, you will have a more presentable blog, and happier readers.
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