10 Things You Shouldn’t have on Your Blog
You can’t/shouldn’t share everything on web right? When it comes to commercial blogs we share everything except some personal info. Bloggers are sharing their income reports too. That’s fine and it’s again depends on personal opinions. We need to respect them! Still we need to know things which you shouldn’t or not recommended to share on blogs.
All this is not only for the so called security, but also for the performance and then for success too. Let’s discuss some simple things not to publish on…
1. Personal Images and Contact information: You’re looking very nice, but it’s not that safe/good to share your pics online. It became trend to show author photos on blog headers. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, I’m saying place only if it’s necessary. Having too many unwanted images may lead to your blogs performance fall.
2. Auto plays Audio or Video files: Seen many blogs with welcome video or audio files auto play. This may be good for marketing, but not for site performance and users bandwidth. Try attracting with the content, not with the videos and audios.
3. Too many menus: Having too many menus on menu bar may annoy your visitor or may confuse him/her. For example having menus like “Meet author” and “Contact the TZI Team” Both these menus main intension is to offer a contact form to meet the corresponding people on site.
4. Unsupervised chat widgets: People placing too many free widgets on side bars. But how many of them are monitoring those. Having unsupervised chat box shows your irresponsible behavior toward the blog. Visitor won’t wish to come again if he didn’t get so called answer or reply from that chat box.
5. Unsupervised Comments: Main aim of having comments form is to increase communication between fellow readers and authors. But it’s your responsibility to monitor and respond wherever necessary. Preventing one spam Comment is equal to getting one genuine comment. Showing one spam comment in comments section reflects your uninterested work on blog.
6. Out date or Bad links: Providing correct information to the readers is your responsibility. Cross check the URL’s before sharing on your blog. This shows Quality of your blog. We need to have a regular monitoring toward the third party links. Because they may get changed in the long run which leads to 404 errors to your visitors.
7. Long read posts: Try to Avoid writing very long post. If you’re writing long posts means indirectly you’re taking too much of your readers time. No one is willing to spend too much of time on your blog in this busy world, until it’s very important to him/her. Avoid the introduction paragraphs and come to the point as soon as possible.
8. Private information’s: Be careful in sharing information which is not copyrighted to you. For example sharing other mail ids, images and etc… This may lead to legal actions some times.
9. Hiding links or SEO tricks: Linking and SEO are very important to prove your presence online. But, be careful in the field by avoiding the violation of search engine terms and conditions. Bloggers need to careful mainly with the Search engines terms and Ad networks tos.
10. Promotions not related to your blog: Bloggers main income these days are from sponsored reviews and ad banners. One should be careful in selecting the reviews to write. Having Reviews irrelevant to your blog shows your thirst towards earning money by degrading your blogs quality.
There may be lots of things like this, but these are most common and simple ones to be considered. Again it’s all depends on the personal opinions of the blog owners, but wanted to share my opinion anyway.
What’s your opinion? Anything else to add? Share your opinion! Happy Blogging!
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@Lax, good not-to-have list. I hate those chat widgets on some blogs. I also hate some of those life traffic feed (feedjit etc) which doesnt add any value to a blog except for slowing down things.
One should also exercise caution while accepting ads and sponsorships. You never know when some of those target page contents change.
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@ Ajith,
Same here too
I don’t like such type of widget.There is no use from that, don’t know how guys are using them still.
Good point you mentioned Ajith about the target changes. But no problem as par as sponsored reviews are concerned.
@ Easymoneyguide and @ Searchenginesecrets,
Thanks for the ping back dudes.
Seems like this post probably started as a rant on item 1 and then became a top 10 list. I have to tell you, I’d much rather see a picture humanizing the author or even company then those silly banner ads you have everywhere flashing what I can get for 100 euros.
I disagree with point 1. That would depend totally on the blog you’re publishing on, don’t you think?
A personal blog would Do well with your photo. However, a non-personal blog could do with a single pic of the author, not a full album.
Good post Lax..
@Lax I realy don’t like chat and shouting Widgets ,I like your unsupervised comments point where bloggers should be more aware to not to approve spam comments which really shows intreset of blogger.
[...] som handlar om just saker som kanske inte är så lämpligt att använda på sin blogg. Inlägget – 10 Things You Shouldn’t have on Your Blog tar upp 10 saker man kanske bör fundera på innan man infogar bilder, ljudfiler, widget med mera. [...]
Excellent points Lax.
There is a great book called “Don’t make me think”, this is a must for any web master. Making your blog as user friendly as possible is important.
Simple navigation, fast loading pages does increase user enjoyment. Make it easy for your users.
@ Guys,
Great points you shared with us here. Thanks for all this dudes…Just keep rocking..
1st is very true. Until and unless there is something strong to share. I don’t like sharing the pics on blogs.
Most of the points are valid and thanks man!
I hate auto play audios and videos. It pisses me off. I am little taken back by the point 7. I just published my Contest Post and it is 1500 words. I imagine if it will Harm the contest.
Yeah, I agree with you man.. even we as a blogger we share things at internet but there is still info that we can be share with other. Maybe my blog have some of it.. got to check it out..
Good list.
To number 1:
Unfortunately there are countries in which it is illegal to publish without sufficient contact information. For example Germany – if you forget to include this information you provoke expensive warnings from trigger-happy lawyers who practically live from that…
@ Guys,
Thanks for all your valuable comments and opinions here.
@Stefan,
Is that? We didn’t about that country rules. Thanks a lot for letting us know about this man.
They call it Telekommunikationsgesetz (Law for Tele-Communication). There are some stages of publishing information depending on the contents and the target audience of your website.
If it’s just private and for few people your name and your address should be sufficient. If it gets more and more your information has to be enriched as well. If you earn your money with it you are in the highest category where you also have to publish your tax number and some other things.
Very important is also the statement that you don’t have any influence on the contents of your linked websites. You have to distance yourself from those sites. If you don’t, chances are good that you’ll be responsible for them as well, should any illegal things happen on those linked websites, no matter if it is a trademark infringement or an instruction how to build weapons.
Some people say if you are running a blog or a forum in Germany you have one foot in prison. That’s the reason why so many German blogs and forums died. People couldn’t afford the warnings they got just because they omitted their publishing information.
@Stefan,
Wow! Great thanks for all the info man. It would be helpful for my German readers. TechZoomIn holds its around 20% traffic share from german.
I agree with you. There is no need to give personal details as long as you are able to communicate to your readers whatever you want to.
I totally agree that one shouldn’t share personal information about themselves, meaning things like phone number, address, etc. I Do feel that having a photo of the author on a blog is a good thing because it helps to personalize the blog. Having a face to go with a name seems to help readers build a little trust. Thanks for the article!
@ Nihar,
Thats true..comments sections is good for communication
@ Keith,
Thanks for your first comments here Keith. Small pic of author is ok..
[...] 10 Things You Shouldn’t have on Your Blog Posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 in Blog Tips – Comments: (21) You can’t/shouldn’t share everything on web right? When it comes to commercial blogs we share everything except some personal info. Bloggers are sharing their income reports too. That’s fine and it’s again depends on personal opinions. We need to respect them! Still we need to know things which you shouldn’t or not recommended to share on blogs. [...]
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If the article is long but informative, maybe it will be take for some considerations.
Like creating an article for your compilation of your blogging experiences and useful tips to others.
I don’t like a blog that has auto play sound or Music..very annoying..most of thsi blog can be found on blogspot..