Make your blog a lean blogging machine
Ok so you have chosen that perfect theme for your blog and have it set up on your blog and now i am going to say one thing, STOP! At least until you read this.
A common mistake with a new blog is that you find all these things that you can add into your blog that you believe are cool and interesting. They can include the popular MyBlogLog list of the latest visitors, tweets from your tweeter account, where your visitors come from, the list goes on. Now you while you may think these are truly gods gift to bloggers but it can be doing something completely different:
Are your cool things slowing down your blog’s loading time
In these days of broadband internet, loading time isn’t quite the issue that it once was. But there are still people out there that are on dial up that don’t want to wait for your blog and its “cool stuff”. And the same is true as well for broadband users, if your blog takes more than a few seconds to load, their attention may wander and they may just visit the next place on their list.
What kind of Impression is it giving.
Another problem that can occur in addition to slow loading time is the impression it can give. If your sidebar is cluttered with different things then it is going to look exactly that, cluttered. Its going to distract the visitor from what you want then to read, your content.
What should you do
Those that have served in any army would have probably heard the expression “lean green fighting machine” and you want to create the same thing with your blog. You want it to be a lean blogging machine. A faster, leaner blog with less distractios is going to minimise the distractions that can happen and let visitors focus on why they are really there, your content.
Good luck with your new lean blogging machine!
Update: Seems i am not the only one thinking this. Andy Wibbels is Loofahing blog sidebars along the same lines as me
