I’m one of those people who generally enjoys reading other people’s blogs; all different kinds. But there are several things that will make me leave your blog really quickly and I thought I’d make a list of things that have annoyed me about some blogs I’ve visited. Obviously, these are just my opinions and should not be taken as fact.
Too many ads. I realize that people who blog at free blogging sites might not have control over this, so I try to be forgiving about that. Furthermore, I understand why someone would want to have ads on their blogs and I wouldn’t leave just because someone has a couple ads. It’s when there are too many ads that I get annoyed because I’d find them distracting. I’m not even sure how many ads are too many…it’s one of those things where I know if if I see it.
Partial feeds. As a blog reader, I much prefer to read updates from my favorite blogs in Google Reader. OK, so maybe you’re one of the people with ads on your site and you want people to have to visit your blog in order to see the ads. But you know what? I’m not going to click through to your site. In fact, if I see that your blog only has a partial feed, I’m instantly going to unsubscribe. I don’t care how amazing your blog is, if the feed isn’t full/complete, I’m not reading. You know what else? You can always monitize your feed if that’s your thing; I’m much more forgiving of people with ads on their feeds than people with partial feeds.
Blogs with music that plays automatically. I’m glad you think that you have a favorite song. If you’re a songwriter, I’m impressed. But if any song starts playing automatically when I visit your blog, I’m leaving without even bothering to read. If you want to post a song, at least give me the option of playing it or not.
Blogs that are hard to read. Yes, I realize I said that I read blogs in Google Reader. However, I have to visit your blog at least once in order to subcribe and if I find text that’s hard to read either because the font is too small/weird looking or if it’s too dark/bright/a weird contrast with the background, I’m leaving. Basically, if I can’t read your blog, I’m not going to be able to find the feed.
Blogs with too much clutter. I guess this goes along with the ad thing: if there are too many widgets/crap in your sidebar or if the header is too large, I’m not going to bother. To me, there’s too much crap in your sidebar if the sidebar is longer than the posts on the mainpage; the header is too large if I have to scroll down to read any of your text.
Too many posts about giveaways. Don’t get me wrong, I like getting free stuff as much as the next person, but I can’t stand blogs in which practially every post deals with some giveaway or other. I mean, if I didn’t like the blog before, hosting a giveaway isn’t going to make me like it any more.
What are your blogging pet peeves?
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Sue. 20-something. Unemployed bum. Philadelphian.Plans on attending graduate school and hopes to be a librarian. Likes reading, blogging, sleep, dreaming, knitting, crocheting, performing arts, zines, journalling, feminism, collecting quotes etc. Welcome inside my head. Got a question? Ask it.
