Remove the widgets a fresh WordPress installation leaves in the sidebar, such as Log in, the feeds, recent comments and archives. Fill a service page's sidebar with the phone number, quote button, area served and a recent job.

Under the quote button

A plumbing contractor's service page ends with a quote request button in the sidebar. Below it sit a link marked Log in, another marked Entries RSS, a list of recent comments and a column of months.

Nobody at the company chose those. They came with WordPress when the site was installed, and the theme has shown them on every page since.

Each one tells a visitor something, and none of it helps someone deciding whether to ask for a quote.

What the default widgets say

A fresh WordPress installation fills the sidebar with a standard set of widgets. On a business site, each sends its own message:

Together they make a service page look like an unfinished blog, which is what the installation assumed it would be.

Leftovers from the installation

WordPress started life as blogging software. A fresh installation still sets itself up as a blog, with a sample post, a sample comment and a sidebar of blog tools.

Whoever built the site often added the quote button on top and left the rest, meaning to come back to it. Nobody owns the sidebar, so it stays as installed for years.

Themes add to it. A theme's demonstration often shows a full sidebar, and the site is built to look like the demonstration.

The login link

The Log in link points to the page where the site's administrators sign in. Every visitor can see it, and so can the automated programs that try passwords on WordPress sites around the clock.

Removing the link does not hide that page, which sits at the same address on almost every WordPress site. Strong passwords and limits on failed attempts are what protect it.

The link simply has no reason to be there. Staff can bookmark the login page, and customers stop wondering whether they need an account.

Archives and comments that date the site

A monthly archive whose newest entry is from 2012 tells a visitor that the company stopped writing two years ago. It invites the question of what else stopped.

A Recent Comments list is no better. On a site without discussion it shows nothing, the sample comment from the installation, or spam that slipped through.

Both have a use on an active blog. On a service page they only put a date on the business.

What a visitor on a service page needs

Someone reading about one service is deciding whether this company should do the job. The sidebar is the place for what helps with that decision.

The phone number and the quote button come first. Then the area the company serves, when work can be scheduled, and a short example of a similar job, with a photo.

Licences, insurance and trade memberships that matter to customers belong there too, stated plainly rather than as a row of small logos.

A worked example

A line painting company with two trucks marks parking lots, warehouse floors and sports courts in and around Prince George, mostly for property managers and warehouse operators.

Its service pages each ended with a quote button, and under it the full set of installation widgets: Log in, the feeds, a link to WordPress.org, an empty comments list and three months of archive from 2012.

The site had been built quickly before a spring season and never revisited. The owner checked it only on his phone, where the sidebar sat so far down that he had never scrolled to it.

Each service page now has its own sidebar: the phone number, the quote button, the area served, and a note that lots are painted at night or on weekends so they never close in business hours.

Below that sits one photo of a recent job with a line about it. The office bookmarked the login page, and the archive now appears on blog pages only.

A property manager reading about restriping finds the answers to the next questions right beside the button that books the work.

A sidebar for each kind of page

Service pages, blog posts and the contact page each call for a different sidebar. Many themes allow a separate sidebar for the blog; where one does not, a developer can add it.

The blog sidebar can keep recent posts and categories, which help someone reading articles. The service pages get the items that help someone choosing a contractor.

The contact page may need no sidebar at all, since the form and the phone number already fill the page.

Phones put the sidebar last

On a phone, a responsive theme usually moves the sidebar below the page content, or hides it. Whatever it holds reaches phone visitors last, if at all.

So the phone number and the quote button should also appear in the content of each service page, near the top and again at the end, not only in the sidebar.

The counter-case

A company with an active blog may have readers who follow it by feed, and an archive helps them find older articles. Those links belong on the blog's own pages.

A site edited by several staff may want a login link somewhere they can find it, such as a page meant for staff. It still has no place under the quote button.

The question for each widget is the same: whether a customer on that page needs it at that moment. If not, it belongs somewhere else or nowhere.

Clearing the sidebar

  1. Open a service page and read the sidebar as a customer.
  2. Remove the default widgets that serve no visitor.
  3. Bookmark the login page for the staff who use it.
  4. Put the phone number and the quote button first.
  5. Add the area served, scheduling and one recent job.
  6. Give the blog its own sidebar.
  7. Check each service page on a phone too.

Step one is where the rest begins. Owners rarely read their own sidebar, while a customer reads it at the exact moment of deciding.

Responsive themes push a sidebar down or hide it on a phone, which is why a quote form in the sidebar that phones never show moves the quote form into the page itself.

Frequently asked questions

Why does our sidebar show Log in and Entries RSS?

They come from the standard widgets a fresh WordPress installation places in the sidebar. They stay until someone removes them, often for years on a business site.

Is the login link a security risk?

The link itself reveals little, since the login page sits at the same address on most WordPress sites. Remove it anyway, and protect the page with strong passwords.

What is wrong with a monthly archive?

On a site that rarely posts, the newest month shows when writing stopped, which dates the whole business. Keep archives on the blog's own pages, if anywhere.

What should a service page sidebar contain?

The phone number and quote button, the area served, when work can be scheduled, a short example of a similar job, and any licences or insurance that matter.

Can the blog keep a different sidebar?

Yes. Many themes support a separate blog sidebar, and a developer can add one where the theme does not. Recent posts and categories suit the blog.

Why repeat the phone number in the page content?

Responsive themes usually move the sidebar below the content on phones, or hide it. The number and the quote button must also appear where phone visitors read.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Sidebar still showing the installation defaults?

Send us a link to one of your service pages, and we will suggest what its sidebar should hold instead.

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