No one wants to have a blog that makes people uneasy about visiting & reading content. Over the past month, I conducted a survey across Canada/ US & reviewed several dozen blogs to find collective 'pet-peeves'.
Here are 7 things to avoid:
Note: There are other content suggestions & UX suggestions I have when it comes to optimizing your blog; these tips are intended to make your users feel comfortable reading & sharing your content.
Don't polish your information: Valuable content should be simple, and clear. If you have to encase your content in a widget, or have a bunch of sharing buttons surrounding your content, it might seem desperate & confusing. Some of my favorite blogs simply serve up the content without tricks to get users to share.
Remember banner blindness when using widgets: You remember banner blindness. It occurs when users ignore areas on a website that appear to be advertisements. I'm a big fan of having a right or left rail, with additional content; but for blogs that clutter up their rails with badges, and widgets - beware of banner blindness. I've actually seen some blogs that don't have enough room using one rail, so they use 2 to house all their badges and widgets. Note to those users: you're no longer in the cub-scouts - badges do not need to be displayed. Most people don't care & it distracts from your content.
Over-the-top personal branding gets creepy: I often read blogs during lunch at work and find it really creepy when a huge smiling face greets me. I'd really like the ability to browse through blogs without feeling like I'm auditing real estate broker ads. Focus on delivering your content in a professional way, and leave the big photo's of yourself on Facebook.
There are things you just shouldn't say: I'm not the only one who reads blogs at work. I hate having to quickly scroll past a bad word or cover it with another window. Keep it clean, or notate that it's not safe for work.
Comments should not be found, they should be posted: To everyone who pulls tweets or facebook shares into their comment stream: please stop. If you're trying to encourage conversations on your blog; cluttering up your comment stream with 'comments' from people not participating is a really bad idea.
Moderation is mostly good: 80% of the blogs I've surveyed properly moderate their blogs. Meaning they either understand that comments should be directly posted; or they should be posted quickly - ideally with a follow-up. However, there were a few that use some crazy captcha; or still haven't been posted yet.
Don't post useless information just because it's scheduled: Post useful, valuable content. Posting just because you have a schedule doesn't make sense. Make your blog a place to come for great content; not a place to come because people remember you're updating your content. Why else do we have RSS feeds, Alltop, and Twitter?
In the end, you don't have to follow my advice; but if you've gotten this far, you can't say you were unaware. Before you ask, I reviewed 43 blogs; and surveyed 280 people to get these common 'pet-peeves'. I'll be incorporating the advice into my own blogs too. Good luck blogging, and you can check out my blog anytime: http://www.thejordanrules.com (should be updated soon).