If you use WordPress as a CMS, or just want to customize your sidebar per-page, then there is a solution for you. I’ve spent a long time looking for a way to show only the sidebar content I want on each page. For example; I might like to show the latest news on the home page, helpful links on a resources page and photo thumbnails to add interest to an About page.
Up until now I’ve been using the K2 Sidebar Manger. Its worked well in practice, but is buggy, unsupported by some widgets and is now discontinued. The replacement I found is something called Widget Logic. It uses exceeding powerful conditional tags built into WordPress and allows you choose where you want specific widgets to show up. It is a little difficult to setup at first, and you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the proper syntax. Here are some examples that you can use once you install the plugin.