Customizing your sidebar to optimize your WordPress
A blog’s sidebar is one of it’s key features; other than the header and your content, it’s one of the best and easiest places to add links, advertisements, or widgets to help your readers out. But what exactly should you put in it? How much is too much? Read on! 1. Don’t Overdo It! Many new bloggers go overboard with the sidebar and stuff it with whatever they fancy: little games, maps, Google friend connect, chat boxes, you name it. Don’t do this! Of all the mistakes you can make with a sidebar, putting too much stuff in it is probably the worst. Adding too much stuff makes your blog look cluttered, ugly, and spammy, especially if you put up too many ads. You want to have a small, helpful, and reasonable sidebar, not one that’s overloaded with unnecessary stuff. What to Do: Make sure you aren’t adding anything to your sidebar that isn’t necessary, and make sure everything that is in the sidebar has a purpose. 2. Add An “Archives” Widget One of the basic things to add to your sidebar is the “archives” widget. While many bloggers put this widget up, not many know it’s full potential. First off (and most obviously) the archives widget shows all the posts you published in a certain time period. (Usually in months.) You and your readers can thus easily navigate to your monthly posts. Also, if you have nofollow disabled in your sidebar, it’ll transfer link juice to all of your posts, effectively raising the pagerank of your blog. What to Do: Either add the built-in archives widget in wordpress, or try out one of these plugins: (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/collapsible-archive-widget/) (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/breukies-archives-widget/) (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/awsom-drop-down-archive/) Customize the archives widget to not go back too far, but still cover several months. 3. A Big, Easy to Use, & Attractive RSS/Email Subscribe Form Most people put a subscribe button somewhere in their blog, but not many do it right. One of the best places to put an RSS subscribe button is on the top of your sidebar. However, don’t just put up any RSS subscribe button, put in one that also has a easy way to receive posts via email. Make it look good, make it attractive, and don’t forget to make it easy to use. This will prevent readers from no subscribing simply because they can’t find a subscribe button. What to Do: Create an attractive and appropriate RSS/Email subscribe button, and add it to your sidebar, preferably near the top and in a dominant position. Make sure it has a form where the reader can enter their email to receive posts. You can do this by using a plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscription-options/) or coding it yourself in HTML Let your readers know what the button does by writing a post on what RSS is! 4. A “Top Commentators” Plugin Using a “Top Commentators” plugin (I highly recommend this one: http://www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nofollow-free) Is one of the best things you can add to your sidebar. This plugin not only displays your most loyal commenters, but it displays a dofollow link to their homepage (if they have one.) This encourages comments on your blog, helps your loyal readers to come back to comment more, and helps out those who comment on your blog without you doing anything – It’s a win-win situation! What to Do: Install this plugin: (http://www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nofollow-free) Tweak it to fit your needs. Let your readers know that whenever the post a comment, they’re heading toward getting a link to their own blog on your sidebar. 5. A “Popular Posts” Widget Displaying your best and most popular posts is one of the most effective ways to gain loyal readers. Sending readers directly to your best content is a sure way to show them what you’re capable of, and easily lets them know if they’re going to like your blog or not. What to Do: Display your best post by either linking directly to them, or by using plugins such as these: (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-popular-posts/) & (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpresscom-popular-posts/) These five steps are only the beginning to what you can do with your sidebar. One of the most important aspects of changing your sidebar is that: You don’t make changes too quickly without reason! Change is not necessarily a good thing in your blog; you want your readers to be able to identify and recognize the look of your blog. So make changes, by all means, but don’t change ridiculous amounts without any rest inbetween. You ask what your readers want. Your blog is for your readers; find out what they want in your sidebar (as long as they have reasonable suggestions) and do it! If you follow these two rules, your sidebar will soon be a solid, central part of your blog that’ll improve your readership and make it easier to use. Happy blogging!
How To Help The WordPress Community And Improve Your WordPress Interaction: Part 2
This is part 2 and final part of the article ‘How To Help The WordPress Community And Improve Your WordPress Interaction.’ You would be well-advised to read part 1 of this article before going through the following if you have missed it.
How To Help The WordPress Community And Improve Your WordPress Interaction: Part 1
This post is a list of things and ideas that WordPress users and lovers all over the world can do to make the WordPress community even better. This how-to post has many tips and ideas that will help WordPress users appreciate and understand WordPress in a better way.
Cool Firefox Add-ons For Better Blogging
This post enumerates the important Firefox add-ons that have the potential to Add ons for bloggingmake the life of bloggers more comfortable and simple. These are Firefox add-ons that directly or indirectly contribute to better, speedy and more effective blogging.
Some Simple Blogging Tips You Should Not Ignore While Building a Professional Blog
The internet is full of blogging tips that are high on techniques and hard skills but many people while tweaking their codes and themes forget that there are some simple aspects in blogging that you must take care of if you want to make a professional-looking blog. This post is an elaboration of some random tips that you must ensure your blog follows.
Optimizing WordPress Blog for Speed
Is your Wordpress blog slow, sluggish and take forever to load? Read this tutorial for some great tips to optimize and speed up your Wordpress blog for smooth running experience using various tweaks and with the help of few plugins.
How To Find A Good Web Host For Your WordPress Blog?
To publish a website online, you will need a web host. However, all web hosting companies claims that they are the best, people who are new to web hosting might feel lost. No worries, we will be sharing some tips on how can you find a good web host for your WordPress blog.
Why WordPress Is The Ultimate Blogging Platform
Is there any reason why you should use Wordpress over other similar CMS’? What makes Wordpress the best choice for all bloggers? This post explains all that and more.
30 Techniques To Create An Effective Blog
These days everyone is blogging. Creating a blog is really easy but making it work is really difficult. It requires patience and some techniques. Patience cannot be taught but techniques can be. So this post deals with 30 most important techniques to create an effective blog which every blogger must follow. They are really important for a blog to be successful.
WordPress 2 iPhone App Hits Apple App Store!
For many bloggers, WordPress app in iPhone has becoming an important part of the workflow for blogging. The first version of WordPress in iPhone was a decent tool that made it easier to blog on the go right from iPhone, but it was still lacking in some ways.