Hi, Is left sidebar better than right sidebar? Most of the Wordpress themes are right sidebar. Or is right sidebar better for niche / mini sites? I do see that the biggest sites like Yahoo, Ebay, Msn and Amazon have left sidebars. Is left better suited for large websites? I have been using WP themes and they all have right sidebars but personally, I like left sidebars so I am considering changing them... Any suggestions from web design experts??? Thanks!
One isn't better than the other IMO. However, visitors/readers will generally start looking at your site from the left, considering thats how the text is read (left to right). So if your want your content to be looked at first, put it to the left, or if your want your navigation to be seen first, put it to the left.
The web allows you to place elements anywhere on the page, but since the beginning of web design people have conformed to certain conventions. English is read left to right, top to botom. We tend to put a header at the top, navitagion menu along the left, and whatever content they've navigated to on the right. Now, wordpress is a blog, for blogs the most important thing is the content. Since you read left to right, and they are usually pages, not sites, the content is king. If you want to have more than one principle page on your site, I recommend left navigation, or your users may leave after viewing whatever first page they get to
This was the reason why I asked this question. The visitors leave after visiting the whatever page they got to from the search engines or whereever. I am using WP as CMS i.e. I am using WP Pages for static content. I guess I should change the template to have the left sidebar. .
left sidebar is good for adsense placement coz ppl start reading web page from left side and in wp designer use right sidebar so visitor will see post first or adsense ads above post however u can search left side theme at www.wpskins.org
Left is fine. But again left vs right doesnt really matter. If placed well I usually look at both sides. I know on shoemoney.com his ad placements are on the right. If you dont know about him, he actually is a mod here at DP and is a big affiliate/ppc/earn money online from advert guru.
I personally prefer left sidebars, my eyes seem drawn to that space first, regardless of how a site is setout, when i visit a site and its on the right it kinda throws me. Could it be because of reading books pages left to right? i dont know, left just seems better for me. Regarding whats better in general though, i really dont know.
I'm place my goodle adsense at my left sidebar and the blogroll at my right sidebar...Like most of the peoples said, the left sidebar will get more exposure than the right one...
I created some websites last month with right sidebars. This is first time, I was trying right sidebars it was not working very well. I guess left sidebars are traditional one's and it works for all... I think computer and tech savvy people are used to both left and right sidebar but rest of them are used to left sidebar. well, I maybe wrong... AAAHHH! I'm so glad, I asked this question here at DP!
wait, I'm lost, the purspoe of people going to your site is to see google sponsered advertising, or the content? I'm shocked at how shallow some people are! If the best written content on your site are those google ads sure, put them on the left so I see the best content on your site again, leave and make a mental note not to return. Come on people! Why do you have the site, to communicate or to advertise! Think about it.
OK guys. Thanks for all your tips. I have changed one of my sites from right sidebar to left sidebar...