Even the most enlightened bloggers get angry on occasion.
I am chill dude. I meditate two hours each day and generally go with the flow of things. Sometimes I reach my limits when it comes to poor blogging practices. I can’t help it, I flip. Or semi-flip in the eyes of most others.
Unless you want to agitate fellow bloggers refrain from these silly tactics.
Note: I was a clown who practiced some of these techniques at one time or another. No doubt I was the inspiration for similar posts.
1- Comment Drive By’s
“Nice Post!” “Thanks for the post!!!” “Great blog!!!!!” “Nice!!!!!!!” Do I need to continue? We’ve all been hit by comment drive by’s at one time for another. These people hustle to get backlink after backlink, spitting in the face of the blog owner by using their platform to boost their page rank.
This is a despicable practice which earns a person the Scarlett Letter of the online world: S, for Spammer. Once labeled a spammer you have a long way to go to recover your reputation.
2- Pitch On Every Other Post
Buy my product. Now. Limited time availability. We see a similar pitch post a few days – or hours – later, than again, and again and the cycle continues. Unfortunately for the offending party, few stick around for the used car salesman shtick.
This screams desperation. Why would somebody want to buy from a desperate person?
3- Stuff the Feed
Some bloggers send out their last 5 or 10 posts consecutively when setting up their feed. If you use Google Reader this stuffs the feed like crazy and results in an automatic unsubscribe on my end.
4- Title Says One Thing, Post Says Another
I’ve come across my fair share of misleading titles. Heck, before I gained some experience with blogging I did the same thing myself.
Deliver! Write about what you promise to write about. There’s nothing more agitating than false advertising.
5- Ad Frenzy
If you include every ad under the sun on your blog chances are you’ll anger a few readers.
Stuffing your page full of ads make you look desperate. Like the spurned boyfriend or girlfriend who just can’t take a hint, please, don’t try so hard. It just looks bad.
6- Too Many Plug-In’s
Some bloggers have few ads but go overboard on the plug-ins. While waiting for their page to load I could have went to the store, bought dinner, returned home, cooked dinner, eaten dinner and done the dishes.
Performance is an underrated factor in your blog’s readability. You can have an awesome blog which rarely gets read because nobody has the time to stick around to read it.
7- Cluttered Design
Some blogs don’t post many ads but have a poor layout. If your design is too busy with all types of bells and whistles or sloppily laid out, the reader’s attention moves from your content towards the poor visuals.
8- Comment Crickets
Can you hear the crickets? When it’s late at night I like the sound of crickets chirping, so quiet and peaceful.
Some bloggers choose to reply to their reader’s comments with the sound of crickets: no response at all. If someone takes the time to read your post and leave a comment you better return their kindness with a thank you.
Replying to comments is a fundamental duty of a blog owner. If you don’t respond to comments you are setting up a monologue, not a dialog.
How do fellow bloggers tick you off?
Photo Credit – xlibber