How to Declutter a Blog
- 1). Stick to a theme. It’s easy to get sidetracked on a blog and want to post about every little thing that’s taken place in your life, but your blog will look cleaner if you stick to a theme. If your blog is about gardening for instance, don’t talk about your fight with your husband. If your blog is about home schooling, don’t talk about your struggle with weight loss. If, however, your blog incorporates a multitude of areas, find three or four themes that you can stick to and then post about each theme on a specific day.
- 2). Limit your category pages. It may be tempting to give every post a category of its own, but too many options will only confuse your readers. Limit your category pages to ten or less and definitely no more than 20. You do not need a category page for every social blogging network. You can group them together under one heading, Social Networking. If your blog concentrates on gardening, however, a single category page isn’t going to suffice. Break your main category up by providing categories on soil, vegetation, ornamental, equipment, books, and going green.
- 3). Designate a page for your awards. It may be tempting to place images and links of the awards you’ve for your art and/or your blog on the sidebar, but doing so will make your blog look cluttered and visually unappealing. Place your award images, links, and buttons on a single, static page. Arrange your awards by theme and/or date. Include an image of the award, a link to the company presenting you with the award, a 2 to 3 sentence description of what the award means, and another 3 to 5 sentences on how the award makes you feel.
- 4). Designate a page for your blogging buddies. There’s no reason to use up valuable real estate in your sidebar promoting other blogs. Use that space to promote you, your products, and your services. Place your blogging buddies on a single static page, titled "Blogroll." You can then break your blogging friends up into categories, like: artists, writers, infoprenuers, workshops, and resources.
- 5). Designate a page for your archives. Archives can take up a lot of sidebar space and if they simply list the months and years of past posts, they are of no value to your readers. By providing a separate archive page, you can break your posts up into categories or list them by post title in alphabetical order, thus making it easier for your readers to dig deeper.
- 6). Avoid useless information. When new widgets and blogging gadgets come out, it’s fun and exciting to test them out. However, that doesn’t mean you need to fill your blog with them. When considering a new widget or gadget, ask yourself if it will benefit your readers or just waste their time.
- 7). Use ads sparingly. It’s great that you want to earn a little money from your blogging efforts and you should! But don’t plaster your blog with so many ads that your readers can’t tell which is an advertisement and which is your post. Strategically placing advertisements throughout your blog will increase responses; especially if you rely on clicks to be paid. Experiment with your ad placement. Place your ads on the top, in the side bar, and on the bottom of the page—but stick to no more than 3 places per page and make sure that the bulk of the page is content you’ve written--not ads or widgets.
Source...