Blogging tips #3.7: The front page

(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)

Your blog’s front page is its introduction. It’s what many people see first - and it will be the only thing many people see. That is unavoidable. What you can do, however, is to try to make as many people as possible see more than the front page - but that will depend on the front page. Confused yet?

Well, about the looks of the front page, there’s not a lot I can say. I’m not a designer, and while I can say “this looks nice” or “that is ugly”, I lack the necessary traits to create something that looks beautiful. If my blogs ever get to look a lot nicer than they do, it will be because someone helped me with their design.

But there’s a part in which I can help: what to put in your front page? And where?

As to “what”, the thing to remember is this: space is precious. So don’t waste it. For everything you add to the front page (header, footer, sidebar(s), etc.), you should ask yourself: “is it worth it? What will I, or the site, or the readers, gain by it?” If you can’t find a satisfactory answer, then maybe it doesn’t belong there. For instance, the calendar, which a lot of Movable Type blogs have (it’s on the default theme)… how often have you used it, clicked on it, even looked at it, when visiting other blogs? Probably never. So, what is it doing in your blog?

Concerning the “where”: I think it should be obvious (but even I had ignored it, in this very blog, until a few days ago, so don’t blame yourself :)) that the most important, useful sections / links / etc. should be more accessible. That usually means “appearing first”. For instance, most blogs like this have an “Archives” section, where you can choose to see articles by month. Unlike the calendar, that one can be useful, but it’s still not used often, nor does it attract the attention of users, even if appearing at the top. So it can come up last.

The “Categories” list, however, is much more useful, as it shows, in a glance, what the site is about, what kind of articles you can find there, and allows users to quickly see all the articles about what interests them, put together. So it should be near the top.

In short: