COMMENTS
I dropped my blogroll into a separate page, easy to navigate to it if needed. No need to delete it! It's useful for me as well as others who want to know what I read.
fantastic post. great advice.
Nice angle, great title, good advice. I just went over it with my art director. Goodbye gigantic sharing list.
I agree with streamlining the navigation, my blog is part of the rest of my website, looks the same. So I don't have my sidebar cluttered with a bunch of comment or post widgets.. just the tags, categories, archives. I have a few extra share buttons, for services like Stumbleupon or Digg, but don't think they take up too much space.
My only disagreement is the blogroll. Scott Straten's Unmarketing blogroll is awesome, gives great descriptions so it's not necessarily boring space killer. I like Julie's idea of a separate page, seen them a few times but wonder how much traffic they really get.
I link back to tons of different blogs, but there are some that I read pretty often even if I don't always link back to them. That said.. I think my blogroll is probably too big and a little outdated, time to edit. FWIW.
Wow Kipp, this article was on point brother. I especially like the elimination of news releases. This is the #1 mistake businesses make when they first start blogging. Simply put, they forget this important truism:
Nobody cares about you. Yeah, it sounds harsh but it's true. The good thing though is that there is a second part to the statement.
Nobody cares about you until you teach them something they didn't already know. So make the blog about the customer, not about company sales, picnics, events, etc.
Like you said, save that stuff for a separate blog.
This article is right on. As a web developer I often discourage clients from putting every link button to every website they have ever visited. Landing pages are getting so cluttered that customers can not find their way around.
We read constantly that people are not reading they are scanning. If this is true we should not put anything that will distract short attention spans.
I will be sharing this with all my customers today. A voice of reason.
Why should a blog have "the same navigation as your website"? I think it's important for a blog to somewhat distinguish itself from your primary site, the marketing arm of your business, brand, whatever.
We think that blogs that just look like another page of your website get interpreted as a propaganda channel rather than a source of great content, content that isn't marketing of your business.
Tim
I'm curious how you would deal with having more than one website. I have a website for my name and services that includes samples of my writings. I also have a PR/Marketing blog. Lastly, I have a photo/video site. So I'm wondering how much these sites should work with each other and repeat the same information. My blog has a contact page and an about me page. Should it also have a services page or a resume page? How much should I put on that website that is also on my other site?
Great suggestions. #1 is dead on.
I didn't include the Blogroll on my business blog, but kept it for my hobby blog and am noticing that I am approached more often for link exchanges from other bloggers for the hobby blog. So having links on a separate page is a great alternative.
Thanks for the comments everyone!
@Harmony - I would try to find a way to get all of your importatn content onto one blog it is harder and more time consuming to promote 3 blogs instead of 1.
@Tim - You blog is often the front door for many people who visit your site for the first time. You want the navigation to all them to easily learn more about your company. Having a different navigation stops this from happening.
Great article. I never got around to adding a blogroll. So, it's good to hear your recommendation to not include it in my sidebar. Any chance you have a post on - 5 Items to
"INCLUDE" in Your Blog NOW?
Thanks Kipp. How we solve this is a fairly prominent link to our company home page. If, from reading our numerous articles on Facebook coding etc., they think, Hey, this would be a great company to create a custom tab for us ... They'll have no problem getting to our site.
Obviously, our philosophy here differs, but I think each is valid. We want to present the blog as a channel for great advice. And visually we want it to reflect our branding, but present itself as something distinct from HyperArts the Business.
(BTW, why aren't discussions on this blog threaded? :)
I'm all for cleaning up clutter on a blog, but if you remove your blogroll from your main page, you have to expect bloggers you've traded links with to remove you from theirs as well.
I agree with Julie that the blog roll is still valuable to readers but it doesn't have to take unnecessary space on the main blog page when it can be moved behind a link to another page.
Appreciate the article as it inspires us to review what we've "collected" on our pages.
Thanks
done. and done. great post. thanks.
I agree with these tips but would also add that most blogs are arranged by date groups that do not matter always. By only grouping my content by tags and categories and eliminating monthly archives format eh sidebar, usability increases significantly and people are more likely to explore other content. Only works if much of your content has a long shelf life or is evergreen..
Dan
Very useful post. As someone who is still learning on a daily basis about this world it was a big help.
Thanks,
Craig
I agree that unnecessary junk should be removed, especially the sharing buttons. Facebook and Twitter are my main sharing resources.
My blogroll serves dual purposes, so I want to keep it :)
God article, thanks for posting it.
Scott
Good tips Kipp, I agree that one should be very careful on what to add on his own blog, in the end it's mostly a trial and error process as well.
From Google Analytics you can clearly see what people are clicking the most, and what they're totally ignoring. That too is a good way to understand where you should focus your efforts.
Great tips! Nothing like a new show, "Extreme Blog Makeover". The clean look is in.
Absolutely, less is more! Our favorite social sharing buttons are Facebook (#1) and Twitter (#2). In fact, the Google Buzz button we see here up and to the right could maybe disappear too? =)
Great stuff Kipp. Fewer more important options is better. Been slowly simplifying the navigation and sidebar on SocialFresh.com for these very reasons. Getting there.
Very good advice. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has let some of these widgets get out of control. They do slow down the blog, which is not a good thing.....
Great article! This one is RT-able.
I always suggest to my clients to look at their website as real estate, especially the content above the fold. Your worthy content you share is there, but you also need ways to connect, a call to action, and something that promotes and differentiates your product or service.
We may love blogging, but we do need to remember we have a business.
Thanks for the post. I am a journalism/public relations student and although I hadn't previously maintained a blog, I began one during school. It is sometimes extremely difficult to know what items, links, and posts to include in the blog and which ones to leave out. I like how your post gives blogs some cleaning advice - everyone can benefit from pruning their blogs now and then. It has always given me some inspiration on sprucing up my own blog and using it as a networking tool. Thanks again.
I agree that the garbage needs to be deleted! In fact I hate the a lot of the floating sidebars that have the little widgets on them, they are so annoying. Anything without a real purpose needs to go!
I write a design blog, so I realize that what is important to me, might not be important to others outside my expertise. I love having a blogroll, and I love others having me on their blogroll. When I was beginning, I used the blog rolls to locate the best blogs so that I could learn what to do and not do on my blog. I also think it's where other people find me....in fact the analytics prove it. I might consider putting them on a new page, however.
I'm glad you brought this up, Kipp. Too many people fill their blogs with all of that junk - often it's an effort to legitimize themselves. They feel that if they have all the bells and whistles, then they are in the "big time."
Great point about keeping the focus on simple sharing and quality content!
I agree with Jon and Sally J. Why would you want to alienate all the wonderful bloggers you have worked so hard to connect with? Also, I use blogrolls constantly to find new blogs that I enjoy reading and having discussions with. I'd really miss that!
Thanks for pointing these out! There are too many "do these" & not enough "DON'T do these" instructions on the web for blogging & bloggers. I look forward to tinkering with these suggestions!
-Meredi
In other words - http://daringfireball.net/
After reading, I thinned out my share links. Always thought there were way too many, and I'm without explanation as to why I needed to read the obvious on someone else's blog before cleaning that up.
Blogroll - isn't that where we trade links with others? If I take it down, might I lose those inbound links after the others discover they've been de-linked?
Looks like I'm ok on the other 3.
Thanks for the tips.
I like 3 of the things you mentioned. I won't remove my blogroll because it contains other things I want people to see as well. That plus I honor certain people who have been supportive by keeping them there.
The other thing is the news releases. I think it's totally appropriate to have it on one's blog, especially if it's a one person operation. Your site has many writers and many things going for it; you have the option of, well, other options. My blogs are the most visible part of my businesses, and thus it makes a lot of sense for someone like me whenever I have news releases to put them there, though I don't have a lot of them.