» Thursday Thirteen-Top 13 Blogging Mistakes by Rose DesRochers

Thursday Thirteen-Top 13 Blogging Mistakes

February 22nd, 2007 by Rose DesRochers · 30 Comments

Thursday Thirteen

Are you making any of these blogging mistakes?

Background Music - This is one of the most complained about features on a website or blog. Don’t put music files on your blog that run in the background. Give the visitor the option to turn the music off.

Unreadable Font- Ensure your text is readable without one having to strain their eyes just to read what’s on the page.

Screen Size Width -Design your site for the minimum - 800 x 600 screen resolution. There is nothing worse than having to scroll on a page.

Uncommon font- Use a common font on your blog, because if your visitor does not have the font that you used on your blog on their computer then their browser will render the page using its default font.

No Alt Tags- Provide the alt description text with the images you post on your blog whenever possible. Spider bots cannot read images.

Disabling Right Click - Don’t disable right click. This does not work. Determined visitors will either disable JavaScript or retrieve the file from the cache or source code.

Blog does not display the same in all browsers- View your blog in many different browsers. Browershots.org is a free service that generates screenshots of your blog on a wide number of browsers. Enter your web address and click “Make Screenshots.” It takes about 30-40 min.

Too Much Advertising- Adding a massive amount of advertisements on your blog is a huge mistake.

Too Much on a blog. Some bloggers believe they need to have all the bells and whistles. Keep it simple. Too much on a page can slow down the loading time. The same can be said for large images. When someone attempts to load the page, it will take an excessively long time to do so. I have been driven away from many blogs that took a long time to load or froze my computer.

Using Copywritten images without permission- This one can get you in a heat of trouble. Obtain permission before using an image.

Hotlinking to images- Don’t hotlink to images. Hotlinking is when you link to an image on someone else’s server instead of saving the image to your computer and uploading it to your blog. You are stealing their bandwidth.

Non descriptive Posting Titles- When creating titles for your post make them descriptive. The post title is vital for search engine optimization.

Overposting or not posting enough. The more frequently you update your blog, the more frequently the search engine spiders come, but don’t over post. Darren Rowse of Problogger comments that some of the tech blogs for example post 20+ times a day. Wow!

Don’t worry if you have made some of these mistakes. All blogging mistakes are tools that later help you improve your blog.

Darren Rowse has a post on 10 Mistakes that Will KILL a Blog.

Leanne founder and Creator of Thursday Thirteen has commented that this will be the final thirteen that she’ll be hosting. Thank you Leanne, Nancy and Lindsey for hosting Thursday Thirteen. I’m sad to see it end. I have enjoyed taking part the short time that I’ve been doing it. I’ll still drop by past participants blogs each week, and please feel free to drop by mine. Thank you for visiting. Have a great week.

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30 responses so far ↓

Hammer // Feb 22, 2007 at 12:55 am

Terrific tips. I would also add that popups are a real turn off.
Christine // Feb 22, 2007 at 12:58 am

Hi Rose: As always, a great posting. Very good information for novice bloggers like me. Have a great week., XINE
PS - I’m all about books this week.
Vera // Feb 22, 2007 at 1:21 am

I learned a lot from this list.
Thanks!
JHS // Feb 22, 2007 at 2:24 am

Hi Rose: Good tips. I’m off to Browsershots to check things out.

Sorry I haven’t visited in awhile. Just life. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Susan Helene Gottfried // Feb 22, 2007 at 8:00 am

All good advice — but you forgot to tell people to turn off that horrible Snap thing! Ugh!

Happy final TT; hope you’ll keep visiting West of Mars.
Ma // Feb 22, 2007 at 8:52 am

Good tips for all to know. Some of these things you mentioned I don’t know how to do like hot linking. My daughter is the one that set up my blog. I have no clue how to do some things. I need one of those dummies book.
carmen // Feb 22, 2007 at 9:00 am

the music thing is hard when you’re at work.
Peg // Feb 22, 2007 at 9:02 am

Excellent Tips, Rose! As I tweak my blog (which I’ve been doing a lot of lately) I fret that perhaps my changes are not good ones, but in fact are deterring new/existing readers…I know I’ll be back to refer to this list again!
Thanks!
Dazd // Feb 22, 2007 at 9:04 am

Excellent advice! Thank you.
Rach // Feb 22, 2007 at 9:46 am

Thanks for these tips. I’m guilty for number 1.
Gewels // Feb 22, 2007 at 10:00 am

Being the computer illiterate that I am I don’t even know how to make most of those mistakes. I agree, too much takes way too long, I, too, am often driven away. Sorry guys!
Great tips Rose!
Bye Bye TT- Waah!
Chelle Y. // Feb 22, 2007 at 11:15 am

I make so many mistakes that I have to have someone who knows a lot about computers to help me fix them!

Thanks for visiting my TT.
Peri // Feb 22, 2007 at 12:38 pm

I suspected as much; I’ve taken the music off my blog. As for the rest…I’m probably guilty of some of those, too. You’ve given me something to think about.
Richard // Feb 22, 2007 at 12:47 pm

Very useful tips. I shall bear these in mind when examining my blog
Barbara H. // Feb 22, 2007 at 12:53 pm

Fortunately font and screen size width are pre-set for me. I have no idea what alt tags are. I think I pretty much agree with everything else.
Sparky Duck // Feb 22, 2007 at 3:53 pm

my laptop hates all the bling
Beaman // Feb 22, 2007 at 4:42 pm

Good and useful information. Thank you.
Marcia // Feb 22, 2007 at 5:08 pm

Great list, again, Rose. I don’t know what alt tags are either, guess I need to start reading.
Christopher H. // Feb 22, 2007 at 5:50 pm

Thanks Rose for the great tips. I too find background music especially annoying. If I want to listen to music while surfing the Net I’ll listen to whatever music I choose. Not some annoying background music on a blog. So 1997! I have been guilty of too much advertising, and actually just in the last week, removed the Google Adsense Ads on the top of my blog, just leaving the ones on the right sidebar. I thought the ads I had on the top of my page were way too intrusive.
Christopher H. // Feb 22, 2007 at 7:33 pm

Hello Rose,

I have commented and linked to this post on my blog. Thanks again for the great post. Your blog is one of the few that I actually visit on a regular basis. Plus, I gotta support a fellow Canadian as well:smile:
Cheryl // Feb 22, 2007 at 7:41 pm

I don’t usually add descriptions to ALT but I probably should. You have great taste in headers
Rose DesRochers // Feb 22, 2007 at 8:46 pm

Hammer, yeah I agree there.

Barb and Marcia, I have just made a post about the Alt attribute.

Cheryl, I noticed that we have the same taste. I really like Tou Touke’s work and yes you should really add description to alt.

Chris, well I’m glad you find my blog helpful and thank you for your support.

Ma, it is good that you don’t know how to hotlink. lol

Thank you everyone for commenting. I’m glad that you found this post helpful.
Gary LaPointe // Feb 22, 2007 at 9:28 pm

My site is set to really be read on a screen 1024 wide. Or else I can’t fit all my junk on the screen (whoops, that’s another rule).

I wish on a 800×600 screen the extra 224 could just fall off the right of the screen and you’d have to scroll if you wanted it.

I’ve got to many ads too but those are on their way out very soon. It’s clutter and it’s not generating enough revenue.

Although with all my stuff it loads pretty quick. Actually the content loads very quick and then the clutter fills in…

Thanks for making me think about it.
Jen // Feb 22, 2007 at 10:13 pm

Just found your blog through TT13 and great list.
I wish there was a class that I could go and learn more about how to blog and set up templates that are easy to change- thanks for the link and I will pop back again.

I am hoping that TT13 will continue.
Teena in Toronto // Feb 22, 2007 at 10:50 pm

Good things to know!

Mine’s up
Denise // Feb 22, 2007 at 11:09 pm

I hate music on a website - takes too much time to load. The other stuff, I have no clue how to do!
Ian // Feb 23, 2007 at 1:28 am

I’m innocent of most of these charges, praise the Great Pumpkin. Those I’m guilty of, well, it may be a sin, but it feels divine.

Not sure what that has to do with anything, but then I’m up too late reading blogs when I should be getting some sleep.

Ian
Nancy // Feb 23, 2007 at 1:18 pm

I have to agree w. all of these. I hate music. And, too much junk on a site is a PIA. And, more times than not it crashes the browser w. all that stuff.
Rose DesRochers // Feb 23, 2007 at 9:49 pm

Nancy, yeap. Too much on a page makes it load slowly. I don’t mind music on a page. I get annoyed when it begins to play without warning and I don’t have the option to turn it off.

Ian, not all of them. I can turn your music off. lol

Jen feel free to join bloggertalk.net

Denise, yes it does.

Thanks Teena.

Gary ROFL. No problem. My pleasure!
catherine // Feb 24, 2007 at 4:52 pm

Great list. I just switched from a very plain blog with one entry and two columns below it. Now I have the three column layout because I noticed more people with that one. I can’t decide what is “too much”.
I also HATE music on blogs.
Thanks for visiting. You have a great site; I’ll be back.