A Blog Reader’s Nightmare
How many times did you come across a blog post that seamed to deliver the right information, but the post itself was just too hard to follow? Countless times, I bet.
And so, what seamed like the perfect solution for your searches, easily turns into a nightmare.
Quality content is NOT enough
Writing a good article is obviously not enough to make people read it. There are many things that can be done to attract readers and back links to it. In the past, I wrote a few blog writing tips on how to make your blog post more readable and the proper structure of a blog post. Now, it’s time to take a look at some of the things that you should not do when writing a post.
The traps of WYSIWYG editors
For most people, the WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) built in the blogging platform is a great tool, one that easily allows us to style our content in just about any way we want, but this “power” is tricky. Here are a few things you need to take in consideration whenever publishing a new article:
1. Publishing and editing content
Don’t simply copy-paste content in the blog’s editor from any other source that allows styling (MS Word, websites etc). The styling will also be imported and will break your blogs’ overall look and feel. Try passing the text through a basic editor, like notepad first, and apply styling in the blog’s editor after. Another alternative would be writing the article directly in your blog’s editor or using a publishing software like the Windows Live Writer.
Take a quick look at Windows Live Writer in this introductory video:
2. Misusing fonts
If your blog’s theme is using one font-family, you should stick to it when creating or importing content. If you’re not satisfied with it, you should edit the overall style of the theme instead of just using different fonts in blog posts. Adds a lot to a blog’s clean, friendly look. Also, keep in mind to always use web safe fonts. Never mix up fonts, too many colors or font sizes. A proper, easy to read font size is about 11 to 13 points/pixels.
3. Acting all emotional
Blogging requires passion. If you don’t have it, you might as well quit. But, when too much passion gets expressed in your blog posts by using smiling faces and all sorts of emoticons, you might just manage to drive a few readers away. I don’t use them, but if you insist on using them, don’t overdo it.
4. Excessive linking
While linking to other blogs is a sign of appreciation, filling your blog post with links is not. It will make your post hard to follow, will probably get skipped by readers (links will not be clicked) and from a SEO point of view, you’ll probably get penalized by search engines for being considered a spammer or content scraper.
5. Embedding different types of media
It’s nice to see a relevant image here and there or a video embedded, but again, overdoing it is simply madness. Of course, if your blog post would be a gallery of photographies from an event, or a tutorial that requires videos and images it’s ok, but even so, you need to place the media in a clean, proper order to make it easier on your readers’ sight.
6. Advertisments
If you’re looking to monetize your blog, having ads showing up in hot areas it’s a must, just don’t place an ad at the end of every paragraph of your post. It’s simply annoying!
Over to you
From a visual point of view, that about covers all the things that drive me away from reading a blog post.
How about you? What similar situations have you encountered while browsing the blogosphere?
-
- Spread the love!
- Digg
- StumbleUpon
- Delicious
- Fast & Free RSS updates?
- Join the 1,353 subscribers NOW!
Loading ...
Great post… I think the most important is over-advertising. Sometimes, on a blog, I can’t find the content because of all the advertising. I’ve almost had a seizure from some of the blogs out there, with 300 banners flashing and words flying around. People need to understand that the content on the blog is most important, because if people are like me.. I see all that advertising and move on.
Keep up the good posts!
-MoneyLizard
http://www.blog-class-room.com
With number 3, I think it’s painting a broad brush onto something that is not even close to being one dimensional.
If the blog’s subject is WWII I would agree, emoticons wouldn’t be prudent. But, for other blogs — emoticons may add to the overall picture if used wisely and creatively.
When commenting (joining the community), I use them too. When writing, i don’t, because I believe in the power of words to express feelings.
Blogging is not instant messaging. Nevertheless, I consider that, if used with moderation – meaning only when they would add value – I’m ok with them.
Moderation can stand for “wisely and creatively”.
<- See? ^-^
Excellent advice. I think we too often focus on the actual text/informational content of the posts rather than layout and formatting.
In terms of alternatives to WYSIWYG editors I’d always recommend the use of Dark Room, as a great little application. As a method of removing distractions and allowing one simply to write it’s unbeatable.
It’s all about branding and developing a unique style in writing and in formating of what you wrote. Good post.
Sometimes I’ll be reading a blog article, and probably get about half way through, when the embedded sIFR headings/files finally load, which causes me to lose my place.
I’m a repeat offender on #1. A couple of my posts have a formatting switch halfway through from composing in Word. Now I’m embarrassed enough to fix it… At least I don’t write three-sentence posts that are made up of at least 10 exclamation marks. That’s the once that bugs me–what a waste of a click!
@Robin: I’ve only heard good things about Dark Room. I think I’ll give it a try soon.
@Brandon: Usually, sIFR files have only a few Kb. I guess it depends a little on th fonts the designer uses, but I haven’t met a website massively slowed down by sIFR. Do you have an example, as a designer I’d be pretty interested in seeing what to avoid. Thanks!
@Sara: I write my posts in MS Word too. I like to give them styling and all that, to make an idea of what I would like them to look in the end.But, as soon as the writing is done, I’ll pass them through an editor, similar to Notepad, which will remove all styling, and reformat the post after pasting in WP’s editor.