Blog and WordPress sidebars are they inseparable?

Blog and WordPress sidebars are they inseparable?

I think it was Shakespeare who once said: " For the sidebar or not, that's the question"

Shakespeare was a smart guy. He knew that the best way to make a major life decision was to stop, take a moment to think about the potential consequences of that choice and speak out loud so that they can hear all aspects of the argument.

And you know what ?

I think this is a brilliant way to tackle these issues and we will be doing the same today.

So the question of the day is: should your website have sidebars or should it ignore them completely?

Sidebars played an important role in website design as we came out of the 00s, when everyone was busy trying to figure out how to design for the Internet in general.

Now, in the 2010s, I like to think we got it all figured out. I mean, we can do some pretty amazing things with just a touch of a button or a quick update. So it's no longer about trying to learn our design or content management system to create great designs.

So let's just try to do it more effectively.

What about sidebars?

Does this hinder effective web design?

Until the last few years, the sidebar has proven to be an extremely useful tool in website design, which allows us to:

Include information that may not match a page.
Place a call to action or form without disrupting the flow of content.
Give visitors a value-added material.
Focus on content that needs more attention.
Display advertisements whether or not they are affiliates.
Share live streams from social networks.
Improve blog navigation by including links, categories, tags, RSS subscription forms, search boxes and more.

Nowadays, can we still say that sidebars are also useful?

What the experts think on the matter:

Opinion # 1: Usability Geek

Yona Gidalevitz wrote an in-depth review for "Usability Geek" last year to find out why sidebars are unnecessary. But rather than saying that sidebars have absolutely no place in UX design, he demonstrated how a sidebar could be used with purpose.

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The example given comes from Google Drive, a platform we are all familiar with.

His argument, in this case, is that the sidebar makes sense for this website because:

It conforms to all layouts of Google apps.
It serves a real purpose and is not just loaded with unnecessary widgets.
It replaces the traditional navigation that most websites have.

Apart from that, however, he repeatedly demonstrates how the major news websites continue to put unnecessary and distracting sidebars on their web designs.

Opinion n ° 2: Fruit Video

Bryan Harris of VideoFruit asked: " What would happen if you removed the sidebar and want to focus your readers' attention only on the content?«

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It was clear that he was frustrated with the 0,3% click-through rate on his blog's sidebar, and so he and his designer set out to test this alternate scenario. The assumption was that if you remove the distraction from the side of the page, more people would be willing to read the post and click on the call to action, even if it was placed at the bottom.

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And that's exactly what happened.

So with the A / B testing of this theory on the VideoFruit website, they found that the sidebar-free version resulted in 26% more email subscribers than the sidebar version.

Opinion n ° 3: Neil Patel

Neil Patel, the man responsible for Crazy Egg and Kissmetrics, has set out to help businesses increase their conversions online.

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In 2015, Patel wrote a blog post titled "Does your blog need a sidebar?". This post is now two years old, but the QuickSprout blog still uses a sidebar, so it looks like Patel is steadfast in his belief.

Here is his argument:

Sidebars give traders, writers, businesses, etc., the ability to:

Get more subscribers by placing the email signup form at the top of the page.
Establish a more personal connection with the audience by providing a biography and a head shot.
Include high quality internal links to the content of your website that will be worthwhile for your audience.
Use those same links to let search engines know what content you want them to repeatedly associate with your website.

Additionally, Patel not only suggests that a sidebar is needed for your blog, but also thinks it should be on the right side of the page. What he found when performing tests on this question was that the left sidebars gave the blog 9% less views, but 13% more subscribers.

Here is his rationale for choosing to put the sidebar of his blog on the right.

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“[I] increased the blog post read count by 9%. Ultimately, the purpose of a blog is to educate you through content… aso why should i delete this?«

What you must remember :

Visitors expect, when they turn to the right side of the page, to see:

An email subscription form
Social sharing icons
Search bars
Categories
Archives

According to research by Egon Sarv, these are the most common elements that can be found in the best websites and blogs.

So, if you want to use a sidebar, these are the elements that we should be able to find.

Discover also some premium WordPress plugins additional

You can use other plugins to display countdowns on your WordPress blog. In what follows, I offer you some of them.

1. Paypal Addon for Arforms

Ce WordPress Plugin will allow you in 5 minutes to accept PayPal payments on your website. This is a very simple solution for users who want to quickly sell products on the internet, or receive donations/contributions on a website.

Paypal Addon is perfectly compatible with the plugin ARForms. This will allow you to create forms, before configuring them with PayPal. Users will be redirected to PayPal after submission of the form.

Explore also our 10 WordPress plugins to create a contact form

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2. APS Ads Manager

APS Ads Manager is an extension designed for the Arena Products Store e-Commerce plugin. It is not autonomous and therefore requires the installation of the latter to operate. He brings to WordPress Plugin Arena Products Store the possibility of easily monetize its products and its product pages without having to modify the files of your WordPress theme.

You will be able to display your ads in various locations using shortcodes and you can use some features of its template to display ad units.

It can also help you display ad units for image banners, Google Adsense ad units and more by detecting the device type of visitors, and many more.

Check out our 5 WordPress themes to monetize your website with Adsense

But I would like to repeat: you will have to install the WordPress Plugin Arena Products Store e-commerce website to use it.

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3. Scrape Price Comparison

Scrape Price Comparison is a WordPress plugin that you can integrate into an online store that is based on the WooCommerce plugin, in order to create a product price comparison and add quickly and easily a shortcode on any post or page.

He rcaptures real-time prices from other websites / online stores and shows your users which website is the cheapest and where to buy.

See also our article on How to create a wheel of fortune for coupons on WooCommerce

As features we will find among others: support thousands of popular online store, the automatic addition of your affiliate link, the support of several shortcodes, the availability of prices even if your website is down or under maintenance, the configuration of the frequency of price updates - minute, hour, day, week -.

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Recommended Resources

Find out about other recommended resources to help you build and manage your website.

Conclusion

So ! That's all for this article that will help you better understand if your WordPress blog must have sidebars.

However, you will also be able to consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on the WordPress blog creation.

Feel free to share this article with your friends on your favorite social networks. But, in the meantime, tell us about your Comments and suggestions in the dedicated section.

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Should your blog have sidebars?