Maximise the value of your blog's sidebars
Posted 25 January 2007 at 4:01PM by Alexa Williamson in Business blogging
The first thing I think of when considering 'what makes a good blog' is the content of the posts. However, the more blogs I read, the more I realise that to have an outstanding blog, you also need to consider your sidebar.
Sidebars have, as a minimum, two important functions. Firstly, to make your blog easy to navigate and secondly to provide metadata - like information about yourself for example.
Sidebars as navigation
To help people find what they want easily on your blog, three 'tools' you should provide in your sidebars - as seen in our blog - are 'categories' for posts, an archive of posts by date and a list of 'recent posts'.
Sidebars can increase traffic
It is also worth having an 'about' page listed on a sidebar as people want to know who is writing for them. DL Byron and Steve Broback, the authors of Publish & Prosper: Blogging for your Business, say in their book that when they left an 'about' page off one of their blogs, readers repeatedly asked who they were. They also found that it was one of the most visited destinations on their blog.
Another way of using your sidebars to increase traffic is to show a list of links of interest to you, called a 'blogroll'. It can help boost your search engine rankings as the amount (and quality) of links to and from your blog form part of the calculations the search engines use to rank it.
A link to where readers can subscribe to RSS/XML feeds, which will let them know when your blog is updated, will also encourage repeat visits.
Other useful sidebar data
Finally, other metadata that could be helpful to readers, particularly if they are customers, includes maps to your premises, contact information and photographs.
Tags: blog metadata, blog sidebars, business blogging
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