Dusting off the Archive: Nobody Browses by Date

Archive pages seem to be the black sheep of the blog world. Everyone feels obligated to make them, and for this reason most come out nearly useless. This series will take a look at ways to improve your archive page, be it through theory or actual guides.

Perhaps the name “Archive” implies a sense of date-specific organization, and perhaps the chronological nature of blogs lends nicely to this range of thought, but is anyone actually browsing by date?

The short answer is no. While date is important for relevance purposes, the vast majority of readers that browse your blog will be looking at topics. So why is it that most blogs feature archive pages that contain only, or lead off with, date-based navigation?

Show Off the Goods

We aren’t browsing old newspapers imprinted on film, so don’t treat your readers that way. Give them the good stuff right off the bat. Prioritize your page just like you do your content. Put popular content and featured content at the top. If anything on your archive page has a description, it should be this stuff. Draw their attention to the most useful items.

Pictures Sell…and so do Giant Signs

There’s a reason fast food joints have combos with numbers and pictures of plastic food, aside from making you ignore the cheap stuff. Readers are lazy. Accept it now and save yourself some trouble. We won’t be scrolling down 10 screens to find anything. We also won’t click a half dozen links to find something either. Give us the key items above the fold, and if possible, put images or creative type with your main articles/categories.

Don’t Ignore the Stragglers

With all that’s been said, readers will from time to time want to gingerly stumble through your pages. Because of this, don’t completely ignore the aspect of date-based archive content. Put it somewhere, but don’t use it to fill up the page.

Be sure to check back for more tips for crafting better Archive pages.