Ten Blogging Mistakes to Avoid
Posted on December 14, 2009 by Rose DesRochers
I have come across a number of blogs where beginners bloggers not yet familiar with blogging have made these ten common blogging mistakes.
Background Music – This is one of the most complained about features on a website or blog. Don’t put music files on your blog that run in the background. Give the visitor the option to turn the music off.
Screen Size Width -Design your site for all screen resolution. When designing your blog be sure to test it out in various screen sizes. Avoid making the assumption that all your visitors are viewing at the same screen resolution. Horizontal scrolling is one of those usability nightmares. There is nothing worse than having to scroll horizontally on a page just to read the content.
No Alt Attribute- Provide the alt description text with the images you post on your blog whenever possible. Spider bots cannot read images.
Disabling Right Click – Don’t disable right click on your blog. No Right Click can very easily be bypassed and most internet uses know how to bypass it. Disabling right click does not prevent your images from being stolen. Determined visitors will either disable JavaScript on their browser or retrieve the file from a search engine cache or the source code of your blog.
Blog does not display the same in all browsers- View your blog in many different browsers. Browershots.org is a free service that generates screenshots of your blog on a wide number of browsers. Enter your web address and click “Make Screenshots.” It takes about 30-40 min.
Too Much Advertising- Adding a massive amount of advertisements on your blog is a huge mistake. There is nothing wrong with a few appropriately places ads, but don’t let it become over bearing. Limit the ads to no more than two or three.
Too Much on a blog. Some bloggers believe they need to have all the bells and whistles. Keep it simple. Too much on a page can slow down the loading time. The same can be said for large images. When someone attempts to load the page, it will take an excessively long time to load. I have been driven away from many blogs that took a long time to load or froze my computer.
Using Copywritten images without permission- This one can get you in a heat of trouble. Obtain permission before using an image. Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of somebody else’s copyrighted material. Giving credit does not mean that you are not infringing on copyright or does it mean that you have permission to use that person’s work. If you intend to use someones copyrighted work on your blog be it a photo, cartoon or article, you must obtain the author’s written permission.
Hotlinking to images- Don’t hotlink to images. Hotlinking is when you link to an image on someones server instead of saving the image to your computer and uploading it to your blog. When you link to an image directly, you are using up that websites bandwidth. This does not cost you anything, but it does cost the website that you’re stealing the bandwidth from.
Non descriptive Posting Titles- When creating titles for your post be sure to make them descriptive. Use keywords in your post titles. The post title is vital for search engine optimization. Consider the words that a potential reader will be using to search in Google to find the information you’re posting about. Use the Overture Keyword Popularity Tool to access the WordTracker database and see what terms are being searched for.
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Really nice tips!
Thanks for sharing.
I created a post like this a while back and I was amazed by how many users didn’t know the small things mentioned here would affect their return readers and overall readership.
It’s funny but the smallest things make the biggest difference.
Rose, these are great tips, and some of these are mistakes I’ve made in the past. Thanks for shedding some light on them.
I have a question, what to you think about registering your blog for a creative commons license? Do you find any value in it? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks!
@Ileane