Showcasing Your Archive Using the Twenty Eleven Theme

My blog is super basic… that I like. I just don’t think there is an easy way to find archived files. I know zero about blog design.

- Shaena Crespo, SheLaughsBlog

Thanks for your question, Shaena!

For those who don’t know much about blog design (or design in general), a basic theme is a really great way to start. It’s hard to screw up basic. In your case, Shaena, I see you’re using WordPress.com as your host and Twenty Eleven as your theme. (Click here to check out Shaena’s blog)

You’re right, browsing through your archive looks like it would be tedious. I would either have to click on the category dropdown menu in the sidebar, or click on a tag or category listed after a post:

Even if a reader would bother to check out your archive, there’s not much of a chance they’ll stick around. All they will get is a reverse chronological list of your posts. When people visit your blog, they want to see the best of the best. They don’t want to have to find it.

Normally I might suggest that you create a custom archive page, use Headway to create custom sneeze pages or install some plugin. However, using WordPress.com makes that pretty much impossible. Plugins and themes like Headway aren’t available to WordPress.com bloggers, only WordPress.org bloggers. I don’t know if you can do custom coding on WordPress.com, but if you can it probably costs extra.

In the future, you might want to look into moving away from WordPress.com onto a self-hosted WordPress.org so that you aren’t limited in the ways you can use your blog.

But, right now you have a problem. How can you help your readers browse your archive using the Twenty Eleven theme on WordPress.com?

If you head to Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress dashboard, you’ll actually find some really helpful options. You’ll see Archive at the top (which you’re currently using as a dropdown menu in your sidebar.) The easiest and quickest way to improve your archive for your readers is to drag the “Top Posts & Pages” widget to the main sidebar.

Now when people visit your blog, they’ll have easy access to the most popular content, the best of the best. You also might want to play around with the Top Rated, Calendar, Category Cloud and Tag Cloud widgets. While I don’t think any of these are the ideal solution for your blog, they are easy to implement and they work well on WordPress.com.

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