Redesigning a blog - Improving the sidebar Part 1
It is my belief that no design is ever complete, it is even more true with blog designs. I believe that it is a continual process of improvement that we must invest our energy into, especially if our desire is to maximize the return we get on a blog design. Therefore I have started this series on redesigning a blog, it is aimed at showing you how to improve your blog further.
As you can see the redesign of the sidebar is not a drastic makeover, but rather are little changes in order to improve it further. These changes are easy to add and don’t require months of planning, designing, or coding either so they are very beneficial as some design mistakes are only obvious later on after the launch of a blog. In the first part of this series, I gave important questions to ask yourself when redesigning a sidebar of a blog.
In this part of the series, I will give the answers I came up with when I approached the redesign of the sidebar and explain my thought process so you get a better idea of how I did it.
1. Is this sidebar serving it’s purpose?
No, it only provides the most recent posts and there is no other way to find a post besides going to another page by using the search or archives.
2. Are people actually using the sidebar?
Based on my study of the data google analytics provided me with, the sidebar was not getting much clicks. The archives are not user-friendly and the recent comments section does not really help people find posts.
3. Is the sidebar useful?
It is only slightly helpful as it provides the most recent posts, but there is no way of easily seeing from a glance whether there are other posts that might be interesting to the user.
4. What is wrong with the sidebar?
It looks empty and from a glance it would easily give off the impression that the blog is underused and no discussions are taken place. Not a good first impression to give first time visitors.
5. How can you improve the sidebar further?
- I made the “Subscribe by RSS” text more prominent so that people will take notice of it first. The previous text was too small and I felt it was not bold enough. My readership has been increasing since the change so I think this change had a bit to do with it.
- I made the headers more visually interesting by adding variations in the text by making one part bold and the other regular weight. The previous headers were all set to bold and looked boring. It did not draw enough attention to itself.
- I made the text links smaller as the post titles were getting way too large. I think this change has made it more compact and easier to read at a glance than before.
- I got rid of “recent comments” and “archives” section as they were not being used by anyone according to the data I collected. In its place, I added a section where visitors can easily get a glance at what is popular, what is related to what they are reading, and posts that are generally useful.
Conclusion
I think the changes I have made to the sidebar has increased the usability, usefulness, and helpfulness of the sidebar by a large amount. These are just examples of small changes that can be done to your sidebar in order to improve it further. Ask yourself the same questions, write down the answers, and redesign that sidebar of yours! If you do redesign it, show me what you did with a before and after.
44 comments
Great recommendations, thank you for sharing. I’m about to redesign my personal site and my blog and I could use this.
Thanks for this! I’ll try to see if Blogger supports interesting and related posts.
Thanks. Need to do the same with mine. Happy blogging!
Nice Tweak. Stumbled!
Well done, these minor tweaks make it much easier to scan things. In my opinion a really important thing (far too many blogs lose readers because they can’t find the good stuff).
Thanx for that Post. I made the same experience. Not a lot of visitors used the calender or archive Links.
Thanks, very useful & interesting post
shall keep this info in mind while designing the next one
good thanks
Thanks good for this, one more you want, find to Google “sidebar menus”
Very nice sidebar, it must make my blogs more beautiful.
Thank for your guide.
It is great article about designing sidebar in blog
This article gives more insight about how the sidebar to be designed
Great information. Im in the middle of revamping my blog and these sidebar tweaks are going to help out alot. Bookmarking now for future visits and reference. Thanks again.
This is probably one of the cleanest layouts and sidebars Ive seen in a while. I really like the blue box with name of each poster. Very clean and elegant.
I agree. This is one of the nicer blogs Ive been to and the simplicity really stands out to me. Thanks for sharing your tips and encouraging others to do their own work. Im bookmarking your page now for return visits.
Thanks for sharing this great article about how we can design sidebars in blogs. I feel it is a useful one
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Thanks for the informative post.. Some blogs are too blah!!
how to create 2 sidebar?
That is a nice sidebar. I find most of the themes from wordpress are pretty blasea or boring. Yours is simple, functional and still aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Very good job.
Excellent recommendations, thank you for sharing. I am about to redesign one of my sites and I could use some of your ideas. These minor tweaks make it much easier to scan things. I love the simplicity that really stands out.
Very useful tips and instructions about redesigning sidebars. Thanks.
is it possible to have a sidebar on left and right side of page? Id like to have two directories, one on left side of blog with links and the other on right side with respective links.
wonderful information. Your information are really useful.
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Excellent recommendations, thank you for sharing. I am about to redesign one of my sites and I could use some of your ideas. These minor tweaks make it much easier to scan things. I love the simplicity that really stands out.
Well, what I think is it is apt to call these modifications rather than improvements, because the sidebar design really depends on the taste and needs of a person… just my view-point
Welll thanks for the guidance i have been using classic templates of blogger so its a new thing for me as far as designing of blog is concern.
These minor tweaks make it much easier to scan things. I love the simplicity that really stands out.
nice tips. now i can improve my side bar
These minor tweaks make it much easier to scan things. In my opinion a really important thing (far too many blogs lose readers because they can’t find the good stuff).
nice post, I get some tips for designing my blog now.
Little changes can make a big difference.
Blogger supports interesting and related posts.
Thanks for writing. was a really nice article. I always follow site. More waiting…..
Great article and well written, thanks!
thanks,That is a nice sidebar. I find most of the themes from wordpress are pretty blasea or boring. Yours is simple, functional and still aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Very good job.
nice post, I get some tips for designing my blog now.
Im in the middle of revamping my blog and these sidebar tweaks are going to help out alot. Bookmarking now for future visits and reference. Thanks again.
thanks for sharing.very useful for me i will bookmark this for my future needed. thanks for a great source.
Thanks for sharing your tips and encouraging others to do their own work. Im bookmarking your page now for return visits.
Thanks for the information, mate!
I find most of the themes from wordpress are pretty blasea or boring.
good
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