Dia Media

Comments Off … Radio Silence

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Drawing from my daily project where I draw first thing in the morning before turning my phone off.

I just turned comments off on this blog. If you want to get in touch use the contact page, or visit us at goodybank

No doubt I should, and likely will, simply re-direct this site at some point, but for now there *is* some trickle of juice, a smidgen of value that keeps me hanging on.

Also I want to transfer over some of that g0ogle juice over to the new site, once I find make the time. I wrote about time once or twice.

There is a brutal efficiency in just lopping off comments that is quite satisfying and helps literally retrieve time, by no longer moderating spam.

I’m going to write an article about what to do with old sites, re-design, re-align (hey wait I already wrote that in 2014!) but it’s 2019 baby and times have changed. Several projects have shown their fragility (2 clients, 3 ours) and I’ve noticed many sites in general that really need re-vamping, so I think the time is ripe to write about what to do when faced with the perils of obsolescence (also written in 2014). But tearing that bandaid off is hard. I know. That’s why this site is still here. For now.

Soon Come. Soon Come.

To Sidebar or Not To Sidebar?

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Sidebars—

For a while now the design trend has been to kill the sidebar, present your content lean and mean, no distractions and so on.

That is all wonderful if you’re a writer and you’re telling a story, and the viewer only needs to read that one story, then that minimalist approach probably works for you.

But, if you’re in the situation where your blog might also have a more nefarious purpose … having folks opt-in to your newsletter ; offering something for sale, or a deal (horrors); or even the old chestnut – showing your archives and tag cloud (kill that feature – it’s probably obsolete)—then maybe you do need one, particularly if it is converting well for you.

Mobile Caveat —Keep in mind that it will be pushed down to the bottom of the page when viewed on a mobile device . Provided your design is responsive or mobile friendly – if not…what’s the delay?

Thoughts on what to keep in the sidebar (if you keep it)

  1. Opt-in offers. I love this word offers, it makes me think of offerings to the Gods—you are offering up  your newsletter, free e-book, something free and shiny, in exchange for capturing their sacred email.
  2. List of popular posts/recent posts/archives.
  3. Links to resources.

The 2nd one, the list of posts, would be dependent on where you’re at in your blogging volume and what type of blog you have. Obviously, if fairly new, or (ahem) you don’t have a ton of posts, then popular posts doesn’t apply. If there is a lot of content and I really like the blog, I find it irksome if I can’t easily navigate through the archives, so it’s always nice to see a link to them somewhere.

What to de-clutter from your sidebar

  • Still have a default meta log-in widget? (Meta
    Log in | Entries | RSSComments|RSS | WordPress.org  ) Out the Door It Goes
  • The tag-cloud
  • Video that plays automatically
  • Too many images

Use your own judgement about what should stay and what should-go, but it’s a good idea to remember  less is usually more.  And…

to b or not to b
Split A/B Testing or even A/B/C

 

How about an experiment?

  • Put different sidebars on different post topics
  • Have some topics with no sidebar
  • Move the content of your sidebar into the footer

And then track the conversion rate with analytics. And then you’ll know what works for you, which is really what counts.

Generic Sidebar

You may notice we’re not following our basic advice to lead with an opt-in offer on our own (still existing for now) sidebar. Why’s that you say?

Well, in a nutshell, the newsletter, e-book, free monthly nifty calendar design download is on the back-burner as we revise our internal goals. Soon come. Soon come.

Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others. —Orson Welles

The Vault