Echoing the advice of Andy Wibbles, Darren Rowse of Problogger advises beginning bloggers to clean up their sidebars. The underlying point both are trying to make is that new visitors need to be able to focus on content when they first arrive at your blog.
Naturally, two other established bloggers wrote posts agreeing with Darren and Andy, leaving trackbacks on Darren’s post. Expecting to see examples of blog layouts that help visitors focus on content, I clicked the trackbacks.
Here’s what I found:
I bet your eyes are just riveted to the content in those two blog layouts!
You say you can’t see any content in those screen-shots? Neither can any first time visitor.
If you’d like to watch Andy’s video here it is:
Maybe Andy’s loofa needs to scrub more than the sidebars of some blogs.
Hi
Great site, very useful tips.
So what you dislike about my blog? The big adsense block?
I’m open for suggestions.
HA! Thanks so much for featuring the video…
Thanks for including the video. Very useful stuff!
Why is that guy sitting at his desk naked? He should be filming himself in the shower so it makes more sense.
I actually visited Johntp’s blog just the other day and thought the adsense ads above each post were annoying. I also have a problem with bloggers including every widget in the world on their blogs. It’s way too much noise.
If you’re making a few cents a day from adsense is it really worth it to keep those ads up? It distracts readers and pushes them off your site.
Want to keep readers? Focus on the content and remove anything that is a distraction. Make your rss feed icon clearly visible and keep your readers happy.