Here's the thing, though. Every social networking site that lures us into becoming a member has a badge or button they'd like for us to grab and display on our site, right? And typically we put that badge or button on our sidebars to show our allegiance and appreciation to said social networking site; after all it's only fair. And, by the way, we hope you grab ours if you're a member of the Mom Bloggers Club! But sooner or later our sidebars become bogged down with way too many buttons and badges. Too many buttons and badges equals sidebar clutter, which in turn creates chaos and disorder. Chaos and disorder are never good for you as a writer or for your readers. In fact, some of the most successful blogs are clean-looking and free of a lot of sidebar chaos like Pioneer Woman, Dooce and Amalah. They use their real estate for ads, which is how it should be. To cut down on your sidebar clutter, try these tips: 
These days it seems as if a brand-new social networking site bursts on the scene faster than we blink. Sites are getting better and better every day and developers are stretching creativity to all-new levels. In a nutshell, it's an exciting time to be a blogger and a member of these sites!
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
Clutter Control: When Too Many Sidebar Elements Ruin Your Blog
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2 comments:
Even more critical then just the clutter of multiple widgets, is the safety of the information these widgets may be gathering, unbeknownst to the unwitting Publisher who installs them.
As a mom, you know our Blogs, like our kids, need to be protected as they grow. P.U.B. [Publishers Union of Bloggers] has pending inquires to Widget Providers concerning how they generate their income and what percentage of this income goes to the Blog Publisher making the critical decision to allow a Widget on their site for their readers. In addition we are requesting transparency on the critical issue of how the private statistic from Publishers Blogs are being used, hopefully with the Publisher’s permission!
P.U.B. expects to heard back from Lijit on these financial and private statistics issues from P.U.B’s inquiry we sent to Lijit in mid April 2008. When we do we will let great Blog Publishers like you know their deal.
Will publish these results to keep the community of Blog Publishers informed on this critical component of Widgets on our Blogs. Thanks again for being a great mom!
Sincerely,
Barney Moran
Founder, P.U.B.
Facilitator, Daddy Boot Camp, Boulder, CO
Jennifer, thanks for suggesting Lijit to your readers as a way of cleaning up a blog's sidebar clutter. We posted something similar earlier this month on our company blog about the need to consider a widget's functionality before embarking on a clean-up. If you or any of your readers have feedback for us concerning Lijit, we'd love to hear it. I'm tara at lijit dot com.
Additionally, I wanted to mention that Lijit not just aggregates all of your online content, but also searches across these sites, giving readers more robust results and better information.
Finally, to address Barney's comment, Lijit has always been an advocate for the blog publisher and always will be. We are currently working on a revenue-sharing model and as soon as it's ready, we will be helping our publishers monetize their blogs more effectively.
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