Blog Tips: What's in Your Blog Sidebar?
by Dave Maloney
Maybe you've checked out some of our previous blog tips, and you've got a blog on your site, great. You're posting awesome content to it on a regular basis, even better! But what's in your blog sidebar, and how helpful is it your readers?
Blog Sidebar Essentials
- Subscribe by Email Option. Make it easy for visitors to become repeat visitors with an email form like the one to the right or even just a basic link to your RSS feed. A lot of people use an RSS reader that lets them know when blogs they've subscribed to have new content. If you don't have an RSS feed, you can create one in seconds at Feedburner.com.
- Category (or Tag) List. Again make it easy for your readers to sort through your articles by organizing them into groups by their subject. Don't confuse these with keywords; more isn't merrier. Think of these as the labels on file folders in your filing cabinet, only instead of a drawer it's your blog sidebar.
- "Most Popular Posts" List. Your "Most Popular" posts are the ones with the most traffic coming to them, so they must be pretty good! People are drawn to these, curious to read why they are so popular, and to get a feel of what your blog is all about.
Other blog sidebar items you may consider are a search function, which is helpful, but not essential. A list of "Recent Posts" saves the reader a lot of scrolling.
You can leave out the "Posts by Date" list; while may be helpful to you, no one else is likely to care what's listed under "February 2003." You just want your sidebar to be as user-friendly as it can. The best part about inbound marketing is it's easy to see what's working or not and make adjustments.