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Personalize your Sidebar

Your sidebar is the section on your blog containing typically a column or two. Gussying up your sidebar is quick and painless. With just a few clicks and your sidebar is ready. If you are using MovableType or WordPress on your own hosted site, it takes a little more work and a little copy and paste, but it is rather painless. Here are a few ideas to get your creativity flowing:

More about yourself. If you are not sure what to do with your sidebar, start with the basics. Not only will poeple who read your blog want to know more about the kind of person you are, but they will be interested in the things you like as well. Some bloggers opt to include links to sites they frequent, or places they shop. Bloggers sometimes provide information on how to contact them using various methods, links to their RSS feeds, and may be short bios about the poeple they frequently talk about in their blog entries.

Your interest. Get a little creative with your interests. If you are an avid book lover or music junkie, share that with our readers. Display a list of your favourite reads. Compile a list of your most angst-ridden CDs or create a catalog of your CD collection.

Popular widgets. There are bazillion widgets, plugins, and code snippets dedicated to displaying who, what, when, where, how. May be you want to display how many people are on your site at this very moment, show what your rank is in Technorati, or may be tell visitors how many people are subscribed to your RSS feed.

Paparazzi. Photos are popular items to include in your sidebar. Including them as a more permanent installment of your site is quite the trend. Whether they are a part of your overall design or a wdget in your sidebar, they can spice up your site with some visual interest.