Blog poll: How many people pay any attention to sidebar content?
Take a look at the stuff posted to the right of this post. I have links to various pages, my archives and a far-too-long blogroll. Even further to the right are ads.
Question: How often do readers make use of these links?
The question came up during discussion of election night results. New organization posted updates continuously after polls closed, but I missed seeing them because the updates weren’t visible among the normal articles that new orgs post throughout the day. Instead, they were accessible through special links set up in the sites’ sidebar content. It seems to me that people have been trained to ignore sidebar content, much like we ignore commercials. We go right to where we expect the new content to be.
The lesson here seems to be: Don’t but links to dynamic content in the side bar, which are a wasteland where no one goes anymore.
So why the hell do I have a hundred links on my blogroll? Why do I have every single category listed? Wouldn’t I maximize the impact of my sidebar by limiting content to ads and instead link to one single page with m entire blogroll and my archives?
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Yeah, cut down on your listings on the side…..maybe use the headers “Peoria Bloggers”, “Illinois Bloggers”,etc as linkable titles that take you to a new page that lists them all. Would clean up your main blog page considerably.
But it’s always a challenge to find what you’re looking for. What’s logical to me isn’t always logical to others and vice versa. But something as pressing as election results should be prominently featured in an area for breaking news, new items, or recent updates and not buried.
I use the recent comments section and the Peoria Bloggers, but I don’t look any farther than those sections
You have sidebars?
lol… I was thinking the same thing.
I use the “recent comments” section. In fact, I’d like to add that to my site. What’s the name of the plug-in you use?
Every once in a while, I’ll use the Peoria bloggers blogroll. I generally pay no attention to the ads.
I use the blogroll, but sometimes the links are outdated or wrong. I can never get to eyebrows from your site, but can from others.
I’m with all above – I like the most recently comments list (although it could be shorter)
And I also use the blog rolls, but if you linked to them on a separate page, that would be fine too.
Might have clicked on your ads once, but it was probably for your ad for tshirts.
Blogrolls are the new RSS. Heh. I have an infinitely scrolling blogroll, but doggone it, I just like all them there blogs.
There have been suggestions on cleaning up the sidebar. The sidebar is a special area of a blog, and needs to be thought about very carefully. There are many little tricks and cool widgets and link buttons one may choose from.
I’ve always like feedrolls, and had a Digg feedroll and a Lockergnome feedroll on the Vaspers blog for a long time. But like you, I decided to put my sidebar on a diet.
Keep fussing with these things, that’s what a hardcore blogger does.
Lets see…
Contributers section – ditch it
Pages section – rework and ditch most of it.
Helping Haiti – ditch it.
Recent Comments – keep
Blog Roll – needs trimmed greatly and/or push some of it to another page
The far right column: ignored completely and could be better off removed
Being the blogfather, you seem to have a duty to list all the bloggers in the blogroll. It could be shortened, to be sure. Even the “Peoria Bloggers” list is waaaay too long. I don’t think having a link to a separate page is a good resolution because of the convenience of the links on the main page. People don’t want to clicky clicky to find stuff, and most won’t.
Maybe a blogroll of “blogs I read everyday”, “blogs I read every-other day” or something along those lines- of course that will piss off the ones who are on the “every-other day”; although that might inspire them to work harder… or say screw you.
My blogroll is a fraction of yours and I still find it to be a hassle to keep everything up to date. Julie is right, the link to Eyebrows doesn’t work, so you must read her site off of your own bookmarks and not from your blogroll.
How about an expandable and contractible button for the blogroll?
The “recent comments” should be pushed up to the top. It is one of the main reasons I chose the template that I did for my own site. CJ, you really need to add this to your site- I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited only to find out a post 6 down is up to 40 comments and most people didn’t realize it.
As for the ads, they’re just clutter to me, but if it helps to pay the bills then so be it.
I know! I know! What’s the plugin for it called?
Also, why does Emtronics get to be at the top of your blogroll, Billy? ‘Dyou lose a bet?
Errrr …. long story.
C.J.: It’s called “get recent comments” and it can be found here.
I am getting such helpful commentary with this post (unlike what usually happens when people post
)
Maybe cause you asked a reasonable question?
Done! Easiest plugin I’ve ever installed on WordPress. Thanks so much for the link!
I like the Illinois blogs list. When I am bored at work err home it is nice to read some of those. I am a little curious why IlliniPundit disappeared from the list shortly after the Braves Illini bet.
sidbars? — never never
oh, hey, it doesn’t work, does it? You have two slashes after the address instead of just one.
Anyway, I like the recent comments and the peoria blogroll, but the other blogrolls are just noise for me.
In the far right, I look at the local sponsor ads, but usually not the rest of it.
I use the recent comments and click through to local blogs that I read infrequently and so don’t RSS feed them.
BTW–when will the blogpeoria site have the recent comments plugin?