Thread: Blogging Distractions To Avoid?

Hi,

Think of it:

You will Never Get a Second Chance to Make your First Impression

Some bloggers (especially newbies) make mistakes that totally ruin the impression of their blogs.

For example, they add all useless badges and counters that do not blend with their page and just clutter up.

What other things do you hate to see on blogs? / Stuff that ticks you off?

Cheers!

Can link exchanges be one?

Let me chip in:

Ads when they have a low readership
Spelling mistakes and poor grammar
Background music
Animated gifs and flash all over the place
Poor colour schemes (yellow text on white, for example)
Default posts not deleted!

About pages that aren't filled in, but stayed the default. Music on background like told above.

Starting with A, not telling further about A but going to B, when starting to talk about B, going to C while not telling further about B. In the end you read an article with a lot of started things but none of the points ever ended

Originally Posted by ryanajarrett

Let me chip in:

Ads when they have a low readership
Spelling mistakes and poor grammar
Background music
Animated gifs and flash all over the place
Poor colour schemes (yellow text on white, for example)
Default posts not deleted!

So your saying that if a blog is not high traffic then people should not put ads on it? Shouldn't you place them while you are starting out so that you can see where they look good?

Originally Posted by Riccur

So your saying that if a blog is not high traffic then people should not put ads on it? Shouldn't you place them while you are starting out so that you can see where they look good?

There are two schools of thought about ads on a "young" blog - bear with me as this goes off-thread briefly.

Some say you should not monetise your site in it's infancy - it will put off readers and can harm your search engine positions. However, others say if you plan to create a blog for profit, you should put the ads on from the beginning. Like you said, this makes it easier to design the site initially, and it also tells your readers what to expect. If you put loads of ads on your site overnight you might find some people won't come back.

I've tried both ways and personally I've had more success with starting the site small with no ads and gradually adding them as the site visits rack up. However, it's worth creating an "Advertise Here" type page from the beginning - you never know who looking at your site and you might be missing an opportunity!

I think these are more like practices than distractions. When you said blogging distractions I thought you meant things that take away from your blogging focus...

I would say adding anything extraneous (not needed by yourself or your target group of readers) is pointless. It clutters the blog and increases load time. As far as ads go - if you're going to sell them, put in a few at the beginning. You want to make sure you don't surprise your readers overnight with ads.

Super long articles that are not broken up with headers. I don't even read those.