De-cluttering Your Blogs Sidebar

Build A Better Blog Day 3

Today's tip is short and sweet. If your blog has a sidebar (and most do), now is the time to do some trimming. As people build their blog they acquire links, badges, scripts and many other items that over time slow down the rendering of your blog. Remember graphics and scripts take time to send from your web server to a visitors browser.

A good way to see how your blog is performing would be to view it in several different browsers. Since most people only have one, maybe two browsers installed on their computer, asking for help from your readers is a great way to accomplish this. You could also use speed services such as iWebTool's Website Speed Test. Putting my domain in the box, digitalthom.com, shows the site loads in 2.7 seconds. Now that may sound fast, but in my opinion, its really not. I'd love to have something in under a second.

The moral of the story here is thin is in. If your site loads quickly you will keep your visitors longer. If there are significant delays they will move on. You only have a few seconds. Evaluate all of your blog "bling". If it's necessary, fine, if not, see if there are other ways of displaying the information or remove it all together. Good luck.

ProBlogger's day three post: Search for and Join a Forum