Recent Posts or Featured Posts?

By on August 15th, 2009

I asked on Twitter, but I want to ask here too:

Would anyone mind if I replace the “recent posts” in the sidebar with a list of featured posts instead? Both would mean too much clutter. You can already see the recent posts by scrolling on the homepage, but I know people click them a good bit anyway (especially on inner pages when coming to an article via search).

I’d like to be able to highlight decent older posts again, but without adding too much stuff to the sidebar.

Share your thoughts.

http://3bm.co/nhZwjC

About Jennifer Mattern

Jenn is a professional blogger and freelance business writer. She has worked as a writer since 1999, and began blogging in 2004. She owns All Freelance Writing as well as several other sites and blogs covering indie publishing, social media, and small business. She expects to release her first book for freelance writers, The Query-Free Freelancer, in 2012 and she is the author of the Web Writer's Guide e-book series.

Posted 908 days ago by Jennifer Mattern
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7 Responses to Recent Posts or Featured Posts?

  1. Samantha says:
    August 15, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    How about putting your twitters there for those that do not have a twitter account to see?

    • Jennifer Mattern says:
      August 15, 2009 at 3:10 pm

      Only concern about that would be that my tweets are often not really relevant to writers, whereas featuring some of the better (but older) posts still would be — lik the 51 places to find freelance writing jobs (used to be easy to access, but now if you don’t know about it you might never find it).

  2. Samar says:
    August 15, 2009 at 5:46 pm

    I’d suggest you go for popular posts. Recent posts don’t always highlight our best posts.

    Or you could make a separate (sub)page for ‘More Resources’, place it next to privacy policy and put ‘Recent Posts’ in its place.

    My two cents :)

  3. Natalie Revie says:
    August 16, 2009 at 6:24 am

    New site looks great jenniffer, very useable, very clean. I think featured posts is almost always a better choice, just my 2 cents. DO you do your design yourself and just get it coded, or do you have a site designer too?

  4. Jennifer Mattern says:
    August 16, 2009 at 9:06 pm

    Thanks for the feedback so far folks. Sounds like the featured posts will be the better bet (and I’m glad to hear that). :) As soon as I have time to alter the header image of that section, I’ll make the change.

  5. Trina L. Grant says:
    August 18, 2009 at 10:51 am

    Jennifer, I like the idea of using your featured posts. I have to agree with Samar, recent posts do not always emphasize the better examples of our writing ability. I agree the new page looks great. Recent posts are easy enough to find, like you said. Having a handy list at the side of some of your better work would be an attractive addition.

  6. Jennifer Mattern says:
    August 19, 2009 at 9:42 pm

    Blah. I keep forgetting about this. I’m busy tomorrow and Friday but if I think of it over the weekend I’ll make the change quick. As per the feedback received, we’ll be switching to featured posts. Thanks all! :)