Matthew Keegan | Musings

You Know That You Are Micro-managing Your Blog When….

The blogging phenomenon has worn off.

All right, let me rephrase my statement: blogging’s initial sheen should have worn away, at least within six months of when you started blogging.

So, how come I see people micro-managing their blogs as if they just started blogging? You know what I mean — people who spend too much time on the things that don’t matter and neglect the things that really do. Like providing interesting and useful content for everyone else to read.

To help set these egregious offenders straight I am offering my unsolicited advice to remedy the situation. Of course, there is a certain amount of humor included, but I’m sure someone will be offended!

Instructive Lists — You have to love them, numbered lists whereby the blogger instructs readers how to accomplish a certain task. “5 Reasons Why No One Reads Your Blog,” “8 Steps to Better Blogging,” “14 Ways to Link to Everyone and Anyone,” you get the picture. Sometimes the advice is good, other times, well….

AdSense Nonsense — Yes, you can still make money from AdSense. No, I don’t want you to slap them on your blog and block off content until I click through to read the ad. Of course, some of the content I’ve found is so shallow that the Hairclub for Men ad looks rather appealing! Uh, oh, I get it….

125×125 Ad Mazes — I don’t mind block ads, but I do mind seeing more than two rows of them. I go to your sidebar looking for blog categories and other relevant links, not to find myself scrolling up and down trying to move past your advertisements. Please, some of the ads on your site are just plain stupid.

Plug-in Party — How’s the new plug-in working for ya? Must be doing quite okay because I see them all over the place. Sure, some plug-ins work quietly behind the scenes (my favorite) while others get in your face. For instance, I hate it when bloggers trick me to subscribe to a thread and I am notified three months later that someone else finally replied to my comment.

Theme-A-Day — Okay, I’m exaggerating here. I haven’t found a blog yet where the theme is changed on a daily basis. What I have found are blogs which are updated but something is left out in the update. Yep, the login for people who want to leave a comment. Better yet — don’t require your readers to register in order to leave a comment. Please!

Too Lazy To Post, Eh? — This one could also be filed under “Lack of Originality” or some sort of term. “Monday Matters,” “Wordless Wednesdays,” and “Freaky Fridays” may sound like appealing categories to you, but I seem to remember that those same cutesy sayings were used when I was in junior high school.

Photo Fantasia – Those are nice photos on your site, but couldn’t they have been cropped? Oh, by the way, your photo gallery isn’t working either. At least not in Firefox. You see, I really don’t like Internet Explorer and I’m not about to test your blog to see how it looks with other search engines. That’s right, it’s your job.

That’s it for now — an unnumbered list of seven, count ‘em seven points for the person who looks a bit too closely at their blog but misses some key aspects not lost on their readership. Wake up!

Tags: blog design, Blogger, blogging, blogs, internet, marketing, web, web design