Comments on: How to Decide How Many Columns are Best for your Blog

By: ed dickau

ed dickau — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:35:12 +0000

I need a 4 (equal column) minima black template fro blogspot that will accomodate a library of Widgetbox developed panels…literally it will be my resource library. Ed.

By: Life in the Metaverse » Blog Archive » A huntin’ we will NOT go…

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:40:14 +0000

[...] Then I remembered a post I’d read at problogger about this very topic. Well, actually it was about the age old quesiton of ‘How Many Columns is it best to have on a blog?’, but it all boils down to the same thing. [...]

By: Article and Articles » Blog Archive » Choose How many column in My Blog

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 04:48:55 +0000

[...] [ via ] [...]

By: Kashif

Kashif — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 17:37:52 +0000

I have a background of working with portals and content based sites so I am used to 3-4 columns on a page. While most of wordpress themes are 2-col, I really like the lightCMS which I have implemented on http://www.apnjijobs.com

By: The HTML Artist » Blog Archive » links for 2006-01-07

The HTML Artist » Blog Archive » links for 2006-01-07 — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 10:21:25 +0000

[...] How to Decide How Many Columns are Best for your Blog (tags: design blogging tips webdesign) [...]

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:46:43 +0000

Like Garri said, I too love the 3 boxes (columns) at the top of the blog to highlight different posts. When I saw this blog's design I knew I wanted to incorporate the 3 box header for my office humor blog. I use the popularity plugin to pull up the most popular and put that in the center, but have found that the most popular rarely change since I get MANY clicks on those which then makes them more popular. So the highlighted posts in the 3 box format definitely attract clicks (haven't had much luck on the affiliated product links on the right box on my blog).

By: Ivan Minic

Ivan Minic — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 18:08:18 +0000

Another very good post :)

By: Webmaster Journey, Tips and Guides

Webmaster Journey, Tips and Guides — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 07:35:10 +0000

[...] Problogger Darren Rowse make a good post on deciding how many columns is it best to have on a blog. [...]

By: moonrk

moonrk — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 06:11:20 +0000

Great post Darren. As a new blogger, I find your web site very valuable.

I was using a three column layout at first, so I could put an advertisement banner in the third column. The third column was using up a lot of space just to place an ad there, so I redesigned using a two column layout and horizontal ads throughout the blog. I think it looks good and is quite functional.

My only mistake is that in the source, my body content doesn’t show up first, I didn’t know it mattered for the search engines :\ Thanks for the tip Ozh.

By: Welches Layout für welche Website - der Inhalt entscheidet » Webdesignblog

Welches Layout für welche Website - der Inhalt entscheidet » Webdesignblog — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 23:47:32 +0000

[...] Der Artikel ist wirklich lesenswert, vor allem die Checkliste ist brauchbar aber sehts euch selbst an: How to Decide How Many Columns are Best for your Blog [...]

By: » On Blog Columns and Other Things To Consider - aczafra.com

» On Blog Columns and Other Things To Consider - aczafra.com — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 23:30:28 +0000

[...] Everybody’s favorite problogger Darren Rowse discusses points to consider when designing a weblog. Specifically on deciding how many columns are best for your weblogs. He also pointed out the basic things to consider when deciding what to put in your blogs. Thanks Darren for this nice article, perfect timing as I’m running out of ideas as to what to put in this new blog. Thank goodness for probloggers like Darren and the guys from Performancing, they surely make the blogging experiences of neophytes like me as pleasant one. [...]

By: Dan Marques

Dan Marques — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 17:06:32 +0000

My personal favorite is a two column website with an indepth header (like the one on problogger) that has a ton of links. Ad placement seems to be the hardest and most overlooked issue in blog layout and design (at least from my perspective).

By: Blogging Tips » Blog Design Layout

Blogging Tips » Blog Design Layout — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 17:05:05 +0000

[...] There is a great post over at Problogger entitled, “How to Decide How Many Columns are Best for Your Blog” [...]

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:34:57 +0000

Great post Darren, with plenty to think about in terms of site requirements vs. site design.

Its important to look at what you’ve got to present to the user rather than considering how you want your site to look and trying to fit the content into it.

I personally find the three coloumn layout a little cumbersome to read, and prefer 2 column layouts, but I can see why they are needed when sites have a huge amount of content and need to give the user an easy way to navigate it.

By: Garri

Garri — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:54:45 +0000

Excellent post Darren!

One of the things I love about your blog design is the way you’ve skilffuly blended 3 and 2 columns. The 3 menu boxes as header gives the impression of 3 columns but main content below is 2 columns.

I also like it because the 3 menu boxes, apart from being useful, actually become part of the branding of your site.

Hope you don’t mind but I have taken this approach in my blog design, soon to be launched, because the content and navigation of that content calls for it.

By: Ozh

Ozh — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:48:08 +0000

The real point I pay attention to, no matter how many columns I use or if they are on left or right hand : make sure that in source, the main content shows up first, and after this, the columns content.

For search engine, this is important, as they give more value to content and keywords that are near the beginning and near the tag.</p> </article> <article> <h1>By: karli</h1> <p>karli — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:29:32 +0000</p> <p>Also…I’d like to add, that if you have a long page, it’s probably a good idea to keep the main content item readable in just 1 column. There’s nothing worse than sites that you need to scroll up and down on to read just one block of text.</p> <p>Never substitute ‘intuitive functionality’ & ‘common sense design(ie left to right, top to bottom etc)’ just because you think something ‘looks nice’. It will more than often drive visitors away.</p> </article> <article> <h1>By: Joe</h1> <p>Joe — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:27:59 +0000</p> <p>I chose one major column with a sidebar. I feel this gives me the most space for the content of my articles (such as they are).<br /> If the article is long enough to go below the fold, there is still plenty of room for advertisements in the sidebar.<br /> Just my 2 cents worth as a beginner. This may change as I progress, but seems to work for now.<br /> Joe</p> </article> <article> <h1>By: Zach Inglis</h1> <p>Zach Inglis — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 13:56:05 +0000</p> <p>I’ve just coded up my new redesign and I chose 3 coloumn layout.</p> <p>Well, I say 3 coloumn, for the homepage, it’s 3 coloumn, for the rest of the pages, it’s 2 coloumn. There’s a lot of data on the first page and I like 3 coloumn layouts too.</p> </article> </main></body></html>