A Sensible Sidebar

Image via Wikipedia

A quick word about the two columns on the sidebar to the right here on YTP. I like to the think of sidebars as the candles on a cake. The accessories on an outfit. The sidebar should sparkle. It should have color and pizazz, but should not overwhelm the primary content.

I actually spend a lot of time arranging my sidebar to look just so, and I only put things on there that I think are useful. For instance, the ads over there are only from sites I use or strongly endorse. The links to blogging resources connect to sites I actually frequent and with whom I have a good relationship. It’s all there for a reason. I try to make sure that nothing is a waste of your time.

If you are interested, here is a quick run down of the links and why they are there:

BlogHer runs beautiful, useful ads as well as clips from posts written by other BlogHer bloggers whose writing is fun and interesting to read.

The yellow ad, for the WordPress Theme “Thesis,” links to the theme I use on YTP’s sister site, Extra (Hour)dinary Parenting. It’s a great theme; I enjoy using it.

WebWarriorTools, part of the ZenHabits world, are also awesome and have been useful to me as well.

Blogflux has some excellent tools I use here regularly, particularly the polls and their mapstats function.

Blogged, BlogCatalog, and AllMediocre are my go-to sites when my web reading feels stale and I want something new. Their editorial review ensures that higher quality of blogs.

BlogCoach is a wonderful site where readers provide feedback and critique of your blog to help you improve it.

Flickr is the easiest way to share photos on a blog.

Bad Behavior (at the bottom) does a great job of blogging site spam so that I don’t max out my bandwidth on my hosting provider.

For stats tracking, in addition to Blogflux, I use Alexa and Blvd (which is still in Beta, but performing well).

And finally, my Blogroll comes straight out of my morning “read” folder in my browser. It’s the best of what I read on the Web.

Wow. That was a lot of hyperlinking. Hope this helps you in your own efforts to explore the blogosphere!