5 Things You Don't Want on Your Blog

I gave you 5 Tips for New Bloggers and those tips were all about things you want to do as a blogger, but I’ve been thinking, there are also 5 things you don’t want to do as a blogger.

Unfortunately, these are common mistakes.

5 Things You Don’t Want on Your Blog

Long Paragraphs
Music
Emoticons
Captcha Comments
Small Photos

Long Paragraphs

Writing a blog is not like writing a book. Although blog readers are most often ‘readers’ of all sorts of writing, they do not expect blogs to read like books. In books, writers often use long paragraphs. They keep writing without interruption until their thought is complete.

Don’t use long paragraphs on your blog.

It will turn readers off.

Many blog readers skim your post. Spoon feed them the important information by breaking your paragraphs into bit size nuggets. Go a step further and highlight the tweetable phrases.

Give your readers information they can absorb quickly and then pass on to their social media networks.

Music

Turn your music off.

Do your readers a favor and do not have music playing on your blog. Moms of small children hate music on blogs.

Music wakes up sleeping babies, scares the bejeebies out of unsuspecting readers, and disrupts silence. If your readers want to listen to music, let them turn on the radio.

A non-offensive way to add music to your blog is to insert a YouTube video. Your readers will have the option of listening to your favorite song or not.

Emoticons

Emoticons are like ramped up exclamation points. Use them sparingly, or better yet, don’t use them.

Now, I like a smiley face as much as the next girl. Am I guilty of throwing a big smiley at the end of a post? Sure I am, but a lapse in good judgement is not a license to grin at all my readers, or worse, wink at them.

Let your words speak for themselves.

Show your emotion through descriptive sentences. Allow your readers to smile at your writing instead of smiling for them.

Using a smiley face isn’t quite the same as breaking one of the Ten Commandments, but think twice before you wink. Emoticons can be a little creepy.

Captcha Comments

Please, for the love of commenters everywhere in blogland, turn off the Captcha.

If you’re worried about spam comments, use a program that will catch spam and preserve the peace of your readers. I mean, am I the only person who guesses those squished up letters incorrectly?

If you blog on WordPress, Askimet does a wonderful job of catching most spam.

Also, one suggestion to those blogging on Blogger, please include Name/URL as an option for commenters. Some of your readers do not use Blogger, and because Blogger is irritable, it often does not recognize other bloggers Open ID’s. Including this extra option will allow more of your readers to comment.

Small Photos

When it comes to photos, bigger is better. You don’t have to use enormous photos, but please don’t use tiny little thumbnails in the middle of one of your posts.

If you do use a thumbnail, it’s better to wrap your text around it. Align the photo right or left and then add your text around it.

When you enlarge your photos, your readers can see the details that make your photo worth viewing.

I hope these 5 tips will help you blog better. Prioritize your readers and make certain they have a good experience on your blog.

What do you think about this list of things to avoid when blogging?

Can you think of anything else to add to the list?

5 Things You Don’t Want on Your Blog