This is a guest post by Chavah Kinloch, a WAHM (Work at Home Mom) of four young children – She’s an artist. You can regularly find Chavah at her blog, Creating My Reality, and you can find her here on Twitter.
Flash – Can we say 1990′s? No one likes sitting there while it loads and then having to click past an intro just to arrive to some more flashing photos.
Music – Please, please, get rid of it or make it optional to start. People will either click away as soon as they hear the music or go insane as they try to find the window that’s making that crazy noise.
More ad’s than content – If your ad’s are taking centre stage, you will get no credibility.
Pop up’s – I can handle pop up ‘join my mailing list’ ads but anything other than that means I will never again return to your site. In saying that though, let me at least read what you’ve written so I can choose whether you’re worth following or not.
Really Bad english – A little bit of error can be tolerated but if it is glaringly obvious that you’ve never had to speak english to communicate for the sake of survival, you should probably be looking to outsource your writing or write in your native language and use something like Google Translator.
Loooong Blog Posts – If it’s going to take forever to say it, break it up. Create a series.
Broken links – Check, check and triple check! Or install this if you use WordPress.
Making people register to comment – You’re likely to lose many commentors if you choose to go this route.
Spam – Take precautions with your blog to ensure as little spam as possible gets through.
Bad content – Reading a post about something we’ve read a hundred times before isn’t interesting.
Writing like a professor – No one wants a lecture!
Lack of images – Try to include a photo in each of your posts.
Caps lock – I can’t believe I still come across this. Caps in text is the equivalent to yelling, SO USE IT WITH CAUTION.
wRiTiNg LiK dIs – Wow. Just wow. Really? Need I say more?
Writing about how perfect your child is – I see this a lot as well. It’s great to be proud of your child, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t be but make sure you don’t overdose your readers with how wonderful little Jamima is at everything. I mean goodness… I have four. I know the deal.
Your site is ugly – There are some extremely bad tasting blog and website designs out there! Search for a talented designer. I use Swish Development.
I click on a link I thought was part of your site and suddenly I’m somewhere completely different – A reader should only leave your blog if they choose to.
The design of you site changes on each page – Only use one template for your all over design.
Slow loading pages – Keep images small and minimise posts on your homepage.
I can’t read the first post on your blog without clicking through – This is a big pet peeve of mine. I want to be able to read at least one post by landing on your blog’s homepage.
There’s no search function for your site – Sometimes people come back for a specific post. If you don’t have a search tool they have to scroll through pages and pages of posts. This isn’t likely to happen so instead you lose the reader and a possible link back.
Music – Please, please, get rid of it or make it optional to start. People will either click away as soon as they hear the music or go insane as they try to find the window that’s making that crazy noise.
More ad’s than content – If your ad’s are taking centre stage, you will get no credibility.
Pop up’s – I can handle pop up ‘join my mailing list’ ads but anything other than that means I will never again return to your site. In saying that though, let me at least read what you’ve written so I can choose whether you’re worth following or not.
Really Bad english – A little bit of error can be tolerated but if it is glaringly obvious that you’ve never had to speak english to communicate for the sake of survival, you should probably be looking to outsource your writing or write in your native language and use something like Google Translator.
Loooong Blog Posts – If it’s going to take forever to say it, break it up. Create a series.
Broken links – Check, check and triple check! Or install this if you use WordPress.
Making people register to comment – You’re likely to lose many commentors if you choose to go this route.
Spam – Take precautions with your blog to ensure as little spam as possible gets through.
Bad content – Reading a post about something we’ve read a hundred times before isn’t interesting.
Writing like a professor – No one wants a lecture!
Lack of images – Try to include a photo in each of your posts.
Caps lock – I can’t believe I still come across this. Caps in text is the equivalent to yelling, SO USE IT WITH CAUTION.
wRiTiNg LiK dIs – Wow. Just wow. Really? Need I say more?
Writing about how perfect your child is – I see this a lot as well. It’s great to be proud of your child, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t be but make sure you don’t overdose your readers with how wonderful little Jamima is at everything. I mean goodness… I have four. I know the deal.
Your site is ugly – There are some extremely bad tasting blog and website designs out there! Search for a talented designer. I use Swish Development.
I click on a link I thought was part of your site and suddenly I’m somewhere completely different – A reader should only leave your blog if they choose to.
The design of you site changes on each page – Only use one template for your all over design.
Slow loading pages – Keep images small and minimise posts on your homepage.
I can’t read the first post on your blog without clicking through – This is a big pet peeve of mine. I want to be able to read at least one post by landing on your blog’s homepage.
There’s no search function for your site – Sometimes people come back for a specific post. If you don’t have a search tool they have to scroll through pages and pages of posts. This isn’t likely to happen so instead you lose the reader and a possible link back.
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