Okay. You’ve seen them, right? Those sidebars that are a super jumble of craziness. Blinking ads or boxes of other kinds? Widgets pointing to all of the things? Lopsided content or, heaven forbid, content spilling off the screen? Old links that don’t work? You get my drift.
Today, I want you to take a firm hand to your sidebar. Have a think about what you really need there. If your blog’s navigation is doing its job, you shouldn’t need too much more distracting from the hero of your home page, you blog posts.
For a neat, functional side bar you should have…
A photo of you and/or a mini bio to in
A subscribe by email box
Feedly and/or Bloglovin’ subscribe links
Links to archived or popular posts
Links to products or your shop (if you have one!)
Links to social media
Any categories or tags that you want to navigate to that aren’t in your main (or secondary) menus
Obviously some of these things may be included in your blog’s navigation bar, but the core bits that aren’t need to hang in the sidebar. The more that you can pull into your main navigation (and any secondary menus you have going on there) the better as it’ll leave room for more static sidebar elements showcasing your best work or favourites: things like ‘I’m loving!’ with a link to your favourite blog of the month or ‘I made this!’ with an image link to a recipe or DIY post, for instance.
If your menus are well designed, your sidebar can be a little bit more interesting and creative.
Sidebar elements are manipulated via the widgets area of your blog (as you probably know!) Head in there and see what you’ve got going on. Are there snippets of old code you no longer need? Are there dusty bits and bobs that need to be turfed?
Also, think back to our colour palette and mood board lessons – is your side bar tying in nicely with those? Are there ways you could create a more cohesive look or feel?
If you have ads on your blog, keep them all the same size and consider lending a helping hand with the design of those ads to make sure they compliment your blog’s aesthetic. Think carefully about having GIFS (those flashing ad boxes) on your blog. Advertisers like them, because they pack more of a message, but they’re not nice for readers, so perhaps keep a lid on them or limit them?
So, when you take all this into account, do you think that your sidebar is still too busy?
Perhaps you need to rethink your main menu and tighten things up there?
Will that free up some space in the sidebar and allow your content some more room to move?
Which sidebar elements really belong in your blog’s main navigation menu?
Which sidebar elements are out of date or too gimmicky?
Is your sidebar too large or too small?
Is your sidebar reflecting your blog’s purpose and strengths, and the things that you love?