Wordpress Themes versus Heat Maps
If you look at most heat maps for advertising on the Internet you will notice that people read blogs just like they read anything else. Left to right. The hot spots on a heat map almost always show that the top left is the hottest spot on a website.
So why are most Wordpress Themes designed where the sidebars and advertisements are on the right side?
I have seen some great looking themes lately, but they are typically still designed backwards. One argument for this is that with the content on the far left the visitor is more likely to read the content, and that may have some merit. But, if you are confident in your content and present it clearly, this should not be an issue.
If you are trying to sell advertisements why would you not place them in the best available spot?
One other problem with sidebars on the left is that the search engines will read those items first and place more importance on them instead of your content. This is fairly easily solved. Either put only javascript ads and such on the left, or program the sidebars to load after the content.
The Wordpress Theme I would like to see would have ALL the following elements.
- 3 Columns with varying width
- Variable Width
- Content on the right, columns (sidebars) on the left
- Content loads first, then sidebars
The Tiga Wordpress Theme I am currently using has 3 of the 4 elements, if you know of a Wordpress Theme with all 4 elements, please let me know.
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Written by: David Cooley - January 19th, 2008
Posted in Blogging
Tags: Heat Maps, Tiga Wordpress Theme, Wordpress, Wordpress Themes
[...] of CyberCoder argues that people that have advertising on their websites should use a left sidebar for their 2-column theme. His argument is that heat maps show that people read from left to [...]
I think it’s interesting that, for all the talk about blogging giving traditional newspapers a run for their money, bloggers are just figuring out things newspapers have known for decades. Look at the front page a printed newspaper and you’ll often see a headline that stretches across the top of the page and the story that goes with it starts in a column on the right.
The differences here are that bloggers use that space for ads. Newspapers use that space for content.
If you are looking for an alternative wordpress theme, I would check out a new site called New Wordpress Themes dot net.