5 Things To Consider Before You Blog Your Next Post

I was one of those guys who got wind of the blogging habit quite late, but things have been rosy ever since. Blogging has helped me immensely on a personal front and its also made me some spare cash for doing something I absolutely don't mind - Keeping an online journal.

However, in my experience as a blogger, blog-reader I've come across a few things every one of us which could be avoided. Remember, I've committed these mistakes before and I'm still learning.

Tip 1 : Digg, SphereIt'ing, Social BookMarking -
I understand that you've put in some work and you want some quick results. But google and Yahoo! only look at your blog sometime later and they take some more time to index your site and your site content.After all, new web-content is being created every second. Please be a little more patient. If you're publishing a sensational article, please go ahead and Digg it. Digging every article that you post, irritates your fellow community and there are chances that you come across as a spammer, which we don't want. Do we?

Tip 2 : Plagiarism -
You come across a new post or article which inspires you to write an article about it on your own blog. Please, please give credit to the person who inspired you with his/her original thinking. Its okay that the world knows you borrowed. how would you like it if someone accuses you of stealing?

Tip 3 : Originality -
Be original and different. When you sign up for a blog, sites like Blogger and Wordpress hundreds of different themes. Why choose the default? I usually choose a theme which reflects my personality and I consider others too in terms of usability. For example, I choose a theme whose colours reflect my personality and also keep the readers of my blog in mind so I make sure my fonts are all readable and reasonably large sized.

Tip 4 : Adverts -
For those who want to make money blogging, please keep in mind how your readers would feel if they come across a site teeming with ads. If you decide to use ads, please reserve an area for those alone. Many platforms provide you with widgets which can take HTML Code, so these are a perfectly fine way of displaying the limited number of ads that you want to go onto your site. And don't forget to include a heading which says " Sponsors" or "Advertisement" for the widget you're using. No, its not a good thing to trick people into clicking ads on your site.

Tip 5 : Widget-mongering -
Clocks, Stats, Chatboxes, Twitterboxes, Pownce-boxes and what not... Too many widgets make your site tacky looking and an enjoyable atmosphere is ruined by the umpteen number of widgets your site has. I once came across a site which had a black theme and had more than 50 shiny widgets that I almost forgot why I was there in the first place. Annoying? Don't let this happen to your site visitors.

Before you post anything on your blog, ask yourself " This is very interesting to me. How would other people find it?" and keep your site's design in consideration. I know its difficult to start with, but you'll get used to it.

Happy Blogging!!

 

Really great points.

Regarding widgets ive visited blogs before where theres so many widgets and ads that the front page has maybe taken 30secs to a minute to completely load, and the page is really long.

 

Great Info!

If I visit a Blog and it has all those buttons and banners etc, and it
takes too long to load, I leave the site.

 

Good post. Comments being 7 miles long is a major turnoff.

 

You made some valid points. One thing I would add is be careful using too much video and audio. Up until a couple of months ago, I was using dial-up and I was not able to visit these blogs at all because it took way to long to load. Now that I am on DSL, I still get annoyed when a site takes more than a few seconds to load. Less is more when it comes to add ons on your blog.