What Makes a Great Company Blog: Sidebars

The sidebars of your blog are a great chance for you to not only give readers information they need, but to also shine the spotlight on them!  In Part Four of my 'What Makes a Great Company Blog' series, I'll look at how superior blogs utilize their sidebars to attract and grow their audience.

There are three main areas you should concentrate on when crafting your sidebars:

1 - Your contact information and bio

2 - Feed subscription options

3 - Putting the focus on your readers and other bloggers

First, your contact information is a must.  I must know who you are and how to contact you.  You can even get creative and put this information in the header, check out the header for the
Corner Violin Shop's blog:

You should also have a picture up of every writer the blog has, as well as either their bio, or a link to their bio.  This makes it much easier for us to trust and be comfortable with the writer, if we can see what they look like.  Wal-Mart (of all companies) does a great job of this at their Checkout blog.

You also want to make sure you have the standards such as categories, archives, and a search button.  But also make sure that you have plenty of options available for letting your readers subscribe to your blog's feed.  Also, where you place the subscriber buttons can affect your subscriber totals.  If the buttons are placed at the top of your blog's sidebar, you'll likely get more new subscribers than if it's placed at the bottom. 

Also make a point to focus on your readers.  You can do this in several different ways on your sidebar, perhaps the easiest is to create a blogroll.  Sure you can add your company's site to the blogroll, but also highlight the blogs of your readers, as you begin to notice readers commenting, see if they have a blog, and if so, add it to your blogroll!  Also, if you discover that certain blogs are popular with your readers, consider adding them as well.

Another way to put the focus on your readers is to add a section highlighting the most recent comments left on your blog.  This is a great way to not only put the focus on your readers, but to also encourage them to comment more often, so they will show up on your sidebar!

As with the other elements of your blog, view your sidebars as a way to provide information that your readers are looking for, but also as a way to put attention on them.  Consider it a way of saying 'thank you' to your faithful readers by shining the spotlight on them!

Tomorrow I'll conclude the 'What Makes a Great Company Blog' series by looking at some of the best company blogs!