A blog’s sidebar is a great place to show content to everyone who visits your site. Instead of wasting the space with huge tag clouds (which you could place in the footer) or going through lists of boring widgets, take some of the ideas below and optimize your sidebar!
Poll – No matter what type of blog you have, a poll can help you find out more about your visitors. Rotating through several polls can keep users coming back and interacting with your site.
Related Posts – A widget to show related posts will decrease your bounce rate and get guests looking around your site. A widget like this will also help you spread link juice around your site. There’s no reason not to have a replated posts widget.
Image Rotator – Does your blog represent a group of people? Show the world some of the cool stuff you do. A picture’s worth a thousand words!
Welcome Note – This is one of the simplest things you can include in your sidebar, but a well written welcome or thank you note can go a long way.
Feedback Form – If you’re providing tutorials or if you’re showing the world what you can do, a feedback form could help you! You’ll get a much higher feedback or contact rate if you leave a small form in your sidebar.
RSS Feed – If you have other areas of your site that you’d like to show your guests, an RSS feed is a great way to get your visitors interested.
Popular Posts – Show visitors some of the posts which are most frequently visited – these are probably the most interesting posts on your blog and people will be interested in them.
Humor – Any type of humor you can make for your blog’s niche will keep people coming back. Have a cooking joke of the day, a funny cat picture every hour, or anything else that could capture your reader’s attention. Returning visitor rates will skyrocket.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree with you, also you must post constantly new, interesting and unique content. This helps also for a good ranking.
I love your "look here" animation!