Tiffany Washko

This is Day 4 of the Become a Better Blogger Challenge and the task is this:

Day 4. De-clutter your sidebar. Clutter likes a sidebar in the same way that monkeys like trees. If you have less in your sidebar, you can focus bigger chunks of attention on what’s really important (your feed link, categories and popular posts). Remove unnecessary widgets and put your blogroll and archives on their own dedicated page. It can also be a good idea to remove underperforming ads.

This task is one I really needed to do. You see I am one to clog up my sidebars with affiliate banners hoping to increase commissions but in general it doesn’t work out that well. I have one or two banners or widgets in my sidebar that actually perform well but for the most part my affiliate commissions come from the content…the actual blog posts. I have been testing and tracking this for a few months so I know what needs to go and what needs to stay.

Things I did to de-clutter my NatureMoms sidebar:

I removed the Feedblitz email sign-up as I now have an aweber signup and having both is redundant.

I removed the BlogRush Widget as the traffic generation was just too insignificant to warrant a presence.

I removed some buttons for different blog directories that I joined and left the ones that actually do generate weekly traffic.

I moved the Sitemeter buttons to the footer.

I also readjusted the placement of the existing ad banners but all remaining actively bring in money. There is no dead real estate.

I think it has better symmetry and it looks a bit cleaner. So mission accomplished.

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