Clean Up Your Blog
- 6 Comment
In our recent Comment Friday, I asked “Does the design of the blog matter?” 35 yes’s later, it’s time to clean up your blog!
Limit Your Widgets
If you are running 10 different widgets, it’s time to narrow it down. Make a choice between mybloglog and blog catalog, they are essentially the same widget anyway. If a particular widget isn’t giving you any results, take it off. It will be easier on the eyes.
Remember you only need one button for your RSS Feed. By having one, potential subscribers can “pick” what they want to subscribe to your blog with. You don’t need to list 10 different buttons for all possible readers.
3 Columns Can Get Messy
A 3 column blog can work, but you have to make it work. Having excess amount of widgets and banners can easily make your blog look sloppy and unorganized. If your blog isn’t easy to navigate, then it can easily get overlooked.
Related Advertising
Slapping various banners on your sidebar and labelling it “advertising” isn’t going to work. One, people are going to be less likely to click an advertisement, once they know what it is. Second, it looks bad.
The key to advertising is doing it without looking like it is an ad. By having clean, related advertising, it will look like it’s another part of your blog, rather than a huge advertisement.
If you need personal help on how you can make your blog look more “professional” free free to contact me and I can give you some pointers.
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6 Comments on this post
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BeachBum said:
I agree with targeted advertising. I belong to 6 or 7 networks so that I can find the best related offers. Thanks for the post, I guess I should clean up my category section.
BeachBum
August 13th, 2007 at 4:31 pm -
Crazykinux said:
Ok Ok, I’ll remove some. Seriously though, I totally agree with your tips Matt. If there’s one visual turn-off, it’s having too many distraction on your blog, which either reduce the importance of your posts, or even pushes your readers away.
I use a label tag cloud filter on my blog which only shows tags that appear a certain number of times. That’s just one example of trying to reduce the clutter.
Great tips, keep them up!
August 13th, 2007 at 7:01 pm -
Michael said:
What is so frustrating with this is that most big blogs such as Engadget are the most cluttered web sites I have ever seen in my entire life. I don’t know how people can stand it, it drives me crazy!
August 14th, 2007 at 3:19 pm -
Matt said:
Glad you like the tips, I actually just helped out one of our authors on their blog cleanup. It is pretty neat though, especially for a 3 column blog.
I know what you mean Michael, I dont really read those blogs. But of course the solution is RSS feeds.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:58 pm -
Charles Lau said:
We got to balance between too many widgets and having to show them..
August 15th, 2007 at 4:26 am
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