Blogging: You Can Send Your Readers Away!

Have you started blogging yet? It starts with a basic set-up at Blogger or WordPress or even your own personal domain, and later, some search engine submissions, social media work, and getting the word out by means like emailing your friends. Now that your blog is ready, let’s have a look at what can go wrong in it—what can put your readers off!

1. Design & Speed

There are a million coolest looking blogs in the Blogosphere. That means the readers are no longer looking for great website designs. They want information in a neatly arranged place that loads faster. The standard loading time for a blog should be less than 4 seconds, and make sure you have it. Otherwise, you know what it will be. 70 per cent of the readers get out of a site if it doesn’t load within the first 4 seconds.

2. Advertising

Readers are smart now, and know well about Adsense or any other ad network you are using for monetization. They frown upon banners and suspiciously descriptive links that attract clicks. So, my piece of advice to you is this: it’s always best to put off ads till you start getting some 100 visitors daily.

3. Web Widgets

Readers are easily put off by fancy widgets such as analog clocks, pics on social networking profiles, and visitor statistics. Add as few of the widgets as possible. Your blog is a utility website, and not like your profile on Facebook or iGoogle. Certain widgets like the translation widget, RSS subscription widget, and social networking icon list are necessary. Do away with all others.

4. Search Box

Have only one search box on your blog. Some bloggers, as I have seen, put up two search boxes (Adsense allows maximum of two). This is ridiculous.

5. Fancy RSS Icon

Do away with it if you have a fancy RSS subscription icon on top. All it does is distract users. Have a small simple RSS icon with an email subscription box optionally.

6. Traffic Stats

If you have mediocre visit stats, don't put up a stats count at all. With trackers from StatCounter, Sitemeter etc., you can opt for invisible trackers. Otherwise, obscure the tracker icon.

7. Personal Blog Posts

You put up a topic-specific blog and posted extensively about your day-to-day life, affairs with your family, the condition of your vehicle, and all that you saw on a day. How much longer do you think your readers will stick around watching you ramble on about your personal life? Two days? Three days? A week? They are gonna stop reading sooner than you realize.

8. Fast Navigation

You have a blog concentrating on a topic. If so, create links to posts with descriptions your users will be interested in. If your topic is for instance “Insurance for vehicles”, then put up home page links to ‘insurance firms’, ‘basic info’, ‘getting cheap insurance’, etc. Don’t put up links to the most advanced articles. Let them have a way with the site, and then browse to the advanced sections.

9. Enable Printable Pages

Most readers will be interested in printable formats. Some users wish to have a single printable page that loads faster than individual pages suitable for web-based reading.

10. Associated Links

Users want to see related topics. They wish to bookmark important links about what they just read. Put up all the useful links you can find about the topic in question. This will come handy for most users.

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