Designing A Perfect Sidebar On Blogger

I just wanted to share some information about sidebar which I think would benefit both the newbies, as well as the webmasters, who are striving hard to make money via blogging - to design a perfect sidebar for your blog. To start off, sidebar is basically a section on your blog template that comes to the left or to the right of the main section and includes links or information related to the blog posts.

It is very important to design this element, that is, put the right content on the right area to attract both the readers and advertisers. As far as I know, a well organized sidebar should include some of the most important widgets like subscription box, advertisements, recent or popular posts, search bar or any information related to the blog they are browsing. Many blogs like TechieMania, Shoutmeloud and my very own blog - EAB, includes optional widgets like Facebook Fan Page/ Twitter Updates or Google Friend Connect.

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So, it's important to know what should come first and what should go at the last. The importance of each widget based on their function has been ordered as shown in the list below. The percentage for each widget in the picture depicts both the importance and the area it should occupy on a particular blog. So, just have a keen look at it!!!

SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS:

This is a very common widget that could be found on most of the blogs. On an average, it should occupy 5% of the space provided for sidebar and I suggest you to include links to your RSS feed, Facebook and Twitter profile page. You can have a short and catchy description about your blog, as well.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

This is the most important element which every blog should possess. It's the ideal place for advertisements and should occupy, at the most 40% of the total space. It's very important that you don't place too many advertisements on your blog and make it look very ugly for the reader. Also, I suggest you have the width set to something more than 260px because you can have two advertisement blocks on the same row - just like the one on my blog. It's up to the individual to decide whether he wants to display ads related to the topic he is blogging about or just sell the ad space he has to run to meet his hosting/domain costs. 

RECENT OR MOST POPULAR POSTS:

This is another important widget that every blogger should place on the sidebar or at least, at the footer section because the maximum traffic your blog receives would be due to the posts you wrote earlier, that is people land on post pages and not on the home page of your blog. So, when you have a recent or most popular posts widget on the sidebar, there is a very high probability that the readers goes to check out another article on your blog. 

EXTERNAL WIDGETS:

This includes widget such as the Google Friend Connect, FaceBook Fan Page and so many other social bookmarking widgets. It's basically used to build better interaction with the readers. So, I suggest you can have these widgets though they are are not necessary. Make sure they don't occupy too much of your space. Limit the space allotment to not more than 10%.

OTHER ELEMENTS :

This additional space is basically for people to add miscellaneous widgets like job boards, tag cloud, etc... Limit the spacing for these elements to not more than 10%.

Basically, this post provides a quick summary about what should be present on your sidebar to make it more professional. So, I suggest you follow the same list especially if you are newbie. This schematic will definitely earn a better reputation rather than dumping a hell lot of widgets for no use. If you gotta share something, then just leave a comment. We love to hear from you!!