2.3 Priorities

There are literally hundreds of things that you could
want visitors of your blog to do. Examples include:
 read at least one post,
 read as many posts as possible,
 read your most popular posts,
 subscribe to the RSS feed,
 subscribe to the email newsletter,
 click on affiliate links and make a purchase,
 click on ads,
 submit a post to a social bookmarking site,
 check your profile on social networks,
 check the blogs on your Blogroll,
 leave a comment,
 bookmark your website on the browser,
 email one of your posts to a friend,
 download your ebook, and
 purchase your product.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to design a blog in a
way that all of those things will be encouraged.
Some people try, but the result is a lot of clutter that
only confuses visitors, creating a terrible user
experience.This means that you will need to prioritize. I
recommend that you write down five top priorities,
and then design the elements of your blog around
these priorities.
Whatever does not support the priorities should be
removed, or at least moved to a place where it won't
get in the way of the user experience (e.g., the
footer).
Obviously the number five is just a rule of thumb, so
feel free to change it. The key message is: the
fewer things you “ask” your visitors to do, the
higher the chances that they will actually do
them.