Improve the Functionality of Your Blog’s Homepage With One Small Change
This article was brought on by a comment I received from Armen in response to my Random Jabber is Back Online article:
BTW...why is it that your recent articles when seen from the index page, aren’t in the most recent order?
They Actually Are in The Most Recent Order
Armen noticed that on the Random Jabber homepage, my “Recent Articles” section displayed different article titles compared to all of the other pages on the site and assumed that they were out of order. They actually are in the most recent order from newest at the top to oldest at the bottom. The difference in the homepage from the other pages is that since I’m already showing five article summaries in the main content area of my site, it seemed a little redundant to duplicate these titles again in my “Recent Articles” section. So, on my homepage, my “Recent” section actually starts with the sixth most recent article, since there are five summaries already shown.
Surely I’m Not the Only One Doing This
I’m fairly certain that out of the millions of blogs in existence, I’m not first blog owner to do this, but after visiting around 30 random blogs, I found that none of them displayed their “Recent Articles” section in this manner. All of the blogs would simply display their recent articles in the same order regardless of what they are showing in the form of articles on their homepage.
I assume that this would be an easy thing to change in most blog platforms, but the only blog platforms I have experience with are ExpressionEngine and TextPattern. In ExpressionEngine you simply add a parameter of offset="x”, where “x” is the number of articles you’re already displaying on your homepage. So, if you’re showing five articles on your homepage, you would set your offset to “5” so that your recent articles section started with the sixth newest article.
Easy, Right?
It should be an easy change, and I think it can only improve a blog’s homepage. The fact that you are showing more article titles on your homepage, the better chance you have of a user visiting one of those links (that wouldn’t normally be there), finding an article they fall in love with, and as a result becoming a regular reader of your blog.
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Comments
I do it on my blog, and a number of the blogs/personal sites that I read do it. But, of course while reading your article, I also realized that I follow a number of sites using Expression Engine as their backend, like Veerle’s Blog.
The sites I read that don’t follow this convention, typically are in a format similar to Daring Fireball. Where the full text of the article and past articles just displays on the main page. I admit to normally hating the format on Blogger and the like. But when someone with some design experience like Jon at Daring Fireball does it, it’s attractive and easy to read. Though, I still pop open longer posts into separate windows.
Off-topic. Since you’re using EE. Have you thought of using Akismet instead of Captchas. There’s a combination extension and module that works with EE; I’ve been using it for about a month now, and love it. So far (except the first message after install) it has trapped every spam comment my site has received. It automatically closes the message until you decide to keep or delete. It’s allowed me freedom from Captchas and daily monitoring of my website.
Posted on Mon Jul 23, 2007
Stravanger: Thanks for the comments. Yeah, the ‘similar’ approach you mentioned would definitely be another way to go about it. Good idea.
allgood2: Always nice to hear from fellow EE users. No, I have not thought of (or even heard of before this conversation) using Akismet, but after reading about it and seeing some of the EE users praise the product in the forum thread, I’m going to give it a try. I too dislike the captchas but thought it was a necessary evil. Hopefully with Akismet, I can remove the captcha.
Yes, the Daring Fireball site is very nice! He does it well with displaying everything on the main page, but as you said, a lot of blogger don’t do it well.
Thanks for your thoughts and I’m definitely going to start using Akismet.
PS: On your site, I like how you’ve got your site map at the top of your page with the drop down functionality. How was that done?
Posted on Mon Jul 23, 2007
My site map is using moo.fx and prototype.lite.js, it’s basically just a javascript effect; but admittedly one that allowed me to remove navigation issues from the page, so I could do full page display of articles, which I really like. I’m could you ever do a post like this music commentary in a 350-450px width window. The videos would be tiny.
I was exploring larger widths like your display, but in all honesty, I only like them, when the 2nd or 3rd column is irrelevant information, since my browser window stays at about ~925px. So pushing the navigation off to the side, with a wider main content area wasn’t that appealing.
I got the idea from CodeIgniter’s User Guide. The first time I saw that, I knew, I could start designing version 3 of my website. I admit just pulling up source from CodeIgniter and playing around with it. After I understood some of the basics, the adaptation was really easy.
Posted on Mon Jul 23, 2007
I see. Yes, that’s basically my thought process on on the wider width with three columns. Right now, my third (right) column is essentially nothing special, so if someone, like yourself has a smaller resolution, you’re still able to view the important stuff.
I looked at CodeIgniter a little but decided it would take up to much of my time. I know zero PHP and it would take way to long for to develop anything using it. I’m happy with what I can produce with EE at the moment.
Posted on Mon Jul 23, 2007
Hey Deron!! Y do u just welcome only the EE user, why not Wordpress user too!!!! 
Meanwhile your RamdomJabber is gradually impressive..
Posted on Mon Jul 23, 2007
Daravuth: Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve never used WordPress so I can only assume it has similar functionality to duplicate what I’m talking about in this article. Not sure though?
Thanks for the comments on the site. I hope that the site does keep gradually improving. Hope to see you back visiting. 
Posted on Tue Jul 24, 2007
That’s interesting…
I’ve never heard/seen/noticed anything like that…
But it’s actually a good idea! :-D
Posted on Wed Jul 25, 2007
This is an excellent idea Deron! I’m going to implement this during the next blog re-design. Thanks for sharing this tip .
Posted on Thu Sep 6, 2007
Brian: Yeah, it just makes sense to me not to duplicate the same articles you’re already displaying on the homepage. Maybe this will catch on and I’ll be the guy that blogged about it first?
Paul: No problem Paul. Glad you found the tip helpful. I look forward to seeing the new design of your blog and this implemented with your recent section.
Posted on Thu Sep 6, 2007
I edited my plugin before I was finished reading this post. It seems like common sense now that you mention it. Funny it never crossed my mind before.
Posted on Mon Oct 22, 2007
I’ve also found it quite redundant to have the same links on the side as the stories on my main page. I’ll have to toggle with this to change it. Thanks for the really good idea.
Posted on Sun Jan 27, 2008
Melanie: Yeah, I never really understood why everyone would list the most recent articles and it would basically be a re-listing of every single article that was right there already on the homepage. I still see it a lot today… I guess those individuals missed out on reading this article? 
Posted on Sun Jan 27, 2008
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My name is Deron Sizemore and I am a web designer, web publisher, blogger and serial internet entrepreneur living in Lexington, Kentucky.
Hum, yes never seen this before and I’m surprise why some haven’t thought of this ealier. It certainly makes a lot more sense.
I think some ‘similar’ approach I have seen is on the homepage showing parts of the most recent post and Title and Date of ten other posts also.
Posted on Sun Jul 22, 2007