Blog's Sidebar; Yes or No ?

6 replies
Hi there.

I am seeing an increase number of high quality blog removing the sidebar completely from theri blog post.

What's the benefit of this? Does it help with anything? Anyone trying this "system"?

Thanks
#blog #sidebar
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisBa
    I think it's just different preferences and themes. I've tried with and without and didn't know any difference in visitor behaviour.
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  • Profile picture of the author CharityMarketing
    As a frequent blog reader I would recommend you to skip it. Cleaner look with more focus on what's important.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Lee Vella
    Great thank you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kent Hopkins
    Chris Lee Vella,

    It has been my experience that the fewer distractions/the cleaner your page, the more user engagement you will receive. I would go without it.
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  • Profile picture of the author 123andyt
    I've always found that part of the problem is that the actual blog post tends to be longer than the sidebar so as you scroll down you end up with a big white space where the sidebar has ended.

    You could install a plugin which scrolls the sidebar with you (so it is always present). If you are using Wordpress there is a free one called Q2W3 Fixed Widget which might do the job

    At various times I have had my site with and without sidebars. It's latest incarnation is with the sidebar as it's really the only place for your signup boxes, latest posts, a widget to introduce yourself, unless you are clever and incorporate that into your posts

    The other alternative is to get a theme which allows you to have "unlimited sidebars" which effectively means you can chop and change per post. So some posts you could have the sidebar and others not, and different posts could have different sidebars. Look for "unlimited sidebars" (or something similar) when choosing a theme
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Lee Vella
    Hey all thank you for the feedback.

    I've been testing this new layout for a couple of days and contrary to what I thought, time on page and bounce rate stayed the same.

    Going to keep this layout for now and keep testing.
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