I’d love to get reader’s input–should I move the bass blog blogroll to its own page rather than having the links on the front page? It does add quite a bit of length to an already crowded sidebar. Do folks use these links frequently, or would it be easier to navigate if they were on their own page? I’m certainly not thinking of getting rid of them, but they do take up a lot of blog real estate. Having links on a separate page within the blog would still give folks linked from here Google juice from this blog, so that wouldn’t be a factor, and having it on its own page may make it more navigable and, ultimately, more useful for people.
I’d just like to hear opinions on this. Thanks!
(Of course, I could finally take the photos of my sweet kitties off the front page and free up some space, but every time I try I just can’t bring myself to do it….)
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maybe you could make the blog roll into a drop down menu, or expandable or something. I’m not sure how advanced your coding skills are. but please, please, don’t sacrifice the cats!
Jason,
I think it probably makes sense for your site… I had the same problem at my site but I was able to find a rather cool WordPress plugin that condenses my blogroll into expandable categories. I don’t believe you are runing a standalone blog are you (Google’s Blogger)? If you are, you can search for a similar plugin; if not, you are at the mercy of your providers (perhaps they can point you in the right direction). What about switching to a two sidebar theme? I did about 3 months ago and am really happy I did (for the real-estate).
Cheers and thanks for the previous post!
J. Pisano
Hi Jason,
Sounds like a good idea 🙂
I usually read your posts in a feed reader, so am mostly spared the busy-ness of your site <g>. But since you asked (well, not exactly), these are things I might rearrange:
1) Keep the cats. They’re a nice personal touch, and they’re down at the bottom, anyway.
2) I could go either way with the blogroll. I like them as the next highest thing to the cats. You usually have plenty of length available on the left sidebar due to the number of posts on the front page.
3) Lose the comments widget. It’s visually unappealing, and you have so many comments that they scroll too fast to be useful, anyway. Let folks subscribe (as I do), or click into the post they’re interested in.
3) Likewise, you have so many posts that the blog archive adds nothing but clutter. You have much better ways to search the blog for posts of interest.
4) I would move the categories tabs to a list in the left sidebar, since they are now competing with page tabs above. Group all remaining ways of searching and navigating the blog into one section.
5) Group all ways of subscribing to various aspects of the blog in one section, as well. That includes the dropdowns at the top of the blog. The podcast subscription options seem to take up far too much real estate.
6) Keep some of the ads in, if you must, but use them as visual dividers between sections, and make it clear they are ads by marking them out with boxes or something.
7) Move the twitter box up near the top, perhaps under the Kontrabass Conversations player. That’s a fun thing, and it’s buried so far below.
8) Lose the MyBlogLog widget. Everybody knows you have tons of readers. It’s a useless decoration.
9) What are those orphan links? They need a header to incorporate them into the blogroll/links section, probably.
10) So, in summary, I would recommend the left sidebar, from the top, be organized as
* CB conv player
* Twitter
* Search this blog
* Subscribe to this blog
* My favorite blogs and links
* My special audience
Phew. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest <vbg>.
Thanks for the great ideas. I’ll do some more thinking about the blogroll, and I’ll take some of those other design ideas under advisement. I appreciate the feedback.