A tip or two for a blog reader and a blog writter

A tip or two for a blog reader and a blog writter

Help your blog, help your readers by loading fasterI have been surfing more Blogs then ever before and I am reading topics that I would never have been exposed to in any other way. I am also getting glimpses into other people’s lives that are from parts of the world that I have never visited, or know anything about, and I find that very interesting.

With all the positives in blogging come a few negatives and here is what I have learned so far…

  1. Take everything you read that appears to be “news” with a gain of salt. I read all blogs as opinion pieces and not “news” pieces
  2. Do not expect a high quality of writing – This blog is an example!
  3. Do not expect readers of blogs to be kind in most of their comments
  4. Do not expect most blogs to have a great layout

OK, the last item I am going to rant about. This is my real iteration with blogging. If your blog is so busy with ads or “widgets” that a visitor cannot tell content from crap, you have a problem!

Many blogs, that actually have good writers, are so packed with ads and other “widgets” that it makes the sites look like disorganized ad billboards. Or a better yet, maybe it should be called “electronic graffiti”, either way, it causes the blogs to load slowly and it distracts from the intended message. Excessive ads and widgets will bring down the value of the blog in the reader’s mind and reduces the likelihood of returning visitors.

In my opinion, unless you are in the top 10%-15% of blogged sites, in your category, you are not going to create enough cash from PPC ads to make it worth the possible loss of regular visitors.

One other issues I have with blogging sites, if you post daily, or near enough, do not put a months worth of postings on the landing page. Again, the site takes to long to load (even on broadband) and it does not look organized. A week is more then sufficient to catch the reader attention and make them look backwards through time, if they wish. By the way, from what I have read, most blog readers do not read much past the last 3-5 postings. They tend to read forward in time as new posts are added.

To the blogging world: Time to simplify!

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