Don't do this!
February 12th, 2008 by
Andreas from Xavier Media
I have been surfing on blogs in the Entrecard network now for a little bit more then a month and I have seen a lot of blogs. Some good, some average, but unfortunately a lot of poor blogs. I have found out that newbies then to add way too much stuff on their blogs so here are a few tips to all newbies:
- Don't add music! Don't add music that starts playing as soon as your blog has loaded! I just hate that. I'm usually listening to web radio when I'm working so I have already music on and I really don't want to hear your music. When I find something I want to listen to I turn off the web radio, but otherwise I simply just want to listen to my own music!
- Don't add any widget you can find! Select a few services you like and only use them on your blog. There's no need to add any widget you can find on a random location in your blog. Use a maximum of 2-3 widgets or your blog will load really slow. Ok, most people like me are on a broadband connection so pages will load pretty fast anyway, but in these Internet days even 0.1 seconds can be the difference between a happy visitor or an angry, hair pulling monster
- Don't join any ad service you can find! Just because you have few readers you don't have to join Adsense, Payperpost, ReviewMe, SponsoredPosts, etc all at the same time in hope for a few extra bucks. If you really have to use ads, just select a few services in the beginning. Remember that the visitors should go to your blog for your content and not your ads
- Don't use Blogger! Move your blog away from free blogging services like Blogger, Wordpress.com or LiveJournal if you're going to run a professional blog. These free services are good for personal blogs, but not if you're going to earn any money. Using a self-hosted Wordpress blog gives you much more options like cool plugins, your own themes, and of course your own domain name (I know you can use your own domain name with Wordpress.com, but that is not the same). If you still would like to host your blog on a sub-domain at a free blogging service, then have a look at this regarding search engine problems.
- Don't add your content in random locations on your blog! Try to find a theme/design that suit your needs so the content doesn't look like you have randomly placed it on your blog. Would you rather visit a nice and clean store or a store that looks like a dumpster?
- Don't show your feed count if you got less then 50 subscribers. If you got less then 50 subscribers you should really not add your Feedburner FeedCount button on your site. It just looks pathetic. Spend your time on hunting more subscribers (i.e. writing content your visitors want) instead of adding useless buttons on your site. Yeah, that's right the button is really useless if you don't have any subscribers.
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February 13th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Party Pooper!
Seriously though, if you're blogging and nobody is reading you're talking to yourself. Getting people to repeatedly visit means respecting their senses. Music and stuff is anoying for most visitors. Great list of don'ts.
6 billion subscribers huh? I'd have believed 5 billion, the last billion don't have internet yet
February 13th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
I found your site through EntreCard and was going to do a drop and run but this article made me stay and read it to the end…and then I wanted to look around some more.
I guess I need to subscribe to your feed now (can't do it coz I am at work and it won't go through). I know my blog is in a different niche but I would appreciate it if you would hop over and check it out. Let me know what you think if you do.
I will be 'dropping' here more often (both ways).
February 15th, 2008 at 3:51 am
I guess you have made some critical points there. Be that as it may, I still believe that it's up to the individual to do what he /she thinks that best suit him/her in his/her blog as different people may have different kind of mindset and thinking.
For me, I would just look at their contents first rather than their layout.
February 15th, 2008 at 7:22 am
I really hope that a lot of new bloggers read this post. Sometimes as I'm surfing, as soon as the page loads I say to myself, "oh dear" because the page looks so sad (meaning bad).
Sometimes I think that poorly setup blogs are because people don't have any sense of coordination. I realize that we all have different tastes in terms of a theme, but organizing your blog is a totally different subject! That is where a lot of people need help. Different subjects call for different approaches in blogging.
Oh well, I could go on about this all day, but I won't. You've said enough to help get everybody on the right track.
Fab post!!