Links / Metadata around Recent Posts etc in Wordpress / Blog - Good SEO Practice?

[s_EOgi_Bear]

Hello

In a Wordpress blog ( or part of an ecommerce site that runs under wordpress )  it is good to show recent posts in the sidebar on most pages.

Obviously the posts aren't going to be relevant to every post , so my questions are:

1. Is having these on the page hurting SEO for the page?
2. Is there good metadata structure to put in there? ( like rel="nofollow"  or similar )

Thoughts?
Thanks for your time
Marty

[Mark_Ginsberg]

Hi Marty,

I don't think this will hurt your SEO, but I'd think of this more in terms of user experience and your goals for the website.

For instance, if the site is primarily an ecommerce site, perhaps driving traffic from the money pages to the blog is not advisable.  On the other hand, if brand awareness and the blog are a big part of your overall strategy, then maybe driving traffic to recent posts makes more sense.

For user experience, recent posts may not be relevant to all pages like you mentioned, so you have to make a judgement call regarding how many pages they will provide value and how valuable they will be on those pages vs how much value they take away on other pages where they aren't as relevant.

Make sense?  Feel free to message me with any other questions

Mark