8 Basics for a Sidebar

Site owners want to show off their content and prolong a visitor’s stay while the visitor’s aim is to quickly and seamlessly find what they need without hassle. A good way to make the best of both demands is to structure a website’s sidebar with short and most valuable content as suggested in the tips below.

1. Site Search

Visitors do not read an entire web page when the visit and will spend only minutes on a website. To make the most of their stay, it is useful to include a search option at the top of the sidebar. Visitors should not need to scroll to the pits of doom or read an extensive autobiography of your grandma when trying to locate what they are searching for because they will often be directed to your web page via search engine and will be quickly looking for specific content. Give your visitors a chance to locate what they need on their own before presenting additional information.

2. About the Site

Along with a search option there should be a concise and structured description of your website and what it is there for. Including either a front page link to a description or writing one on the sidebar itself works to help visitors feel more comfortable and welcome knowing who is behind the website and what its purpose is. The clearer the description, the more likely you are to attract and accommodate returning visitors with related interests.

3. Contact Information

In case people have any trouble finding certain content, have any questions to ask or input to give, a clear contact link is important to have on the top portion of a sidebar. This can not only help visitors with minor issues by asking for your help but it can also be used to your advantage by allowing people a chance to report errors, misuse of your content or offer other information that you may otherwise not know on your own. Visitors are a huge source of input for improvement, so don’t leave them shut out by forgetting to provide a way to reach you!

4. RSS Subscription

RSS is a handy format for delivering regularly changing web content to web readers. To prevent people from missing out on updates, you blog posts are brought directly to them via subscription where they can view your latest site activity and catch up on the newest content. Offering RSS subscription provides a useful ability for visitors to stay informed and coming back for more of your content.

5. Recent Updates

Returning visitors will be quickly scanning for new content which can be missed by being hidden on a sub-page. To prevent your hard work from being overlooked, it is beneficial to provide a front page sidebar link to the newest updates which will speed up traffic and activity. Updates are the key to a site’s longevity, but they do not do much good if hidden far away in Narnia.

6. Popular Pages

If certain content pages bring in significantly higher volumes of traffic than others, it’ a sign that you did something right and that particular work is in demand. Rather than leaving the successful content hidden among less traffic-generating links, it is a good idea to bring popular pages to the front page and allow more people to gain access. By keeping track of volume generating pages and bringing them to the index page, chances are higher that their popularity will grow all the more and contribute to the status of your site.

7. Recent Comments/Commenters

People who take the time to leave thoughtful responses should be rewarded as much as possible; therefore it is a good idea to install an automatic comment script which links to every visitor’s site for a specific period of time without any discrimination whenever they take the time to comment. Though much more out of courtesy then visual aesthetics, the idea of taking the time to thank a commenter in this way allows them to gain traffic in return for interacting.

8. Blog Archives

In the chance that some older content in demand, a quick archive link can save visitors time and hassle from attempting to locate it page by page. Although saving all blog posts and updates may seem irrational at first, it is a good way to help people find what they are looking for seeing as you never know what exactly they may be included to find. The ultimate aim is to make the visitor’s search as easy and quick as possible and that definitely includes linking to properly labeled monthly and yearly archives.

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