Although a new blogger on this site, I’m someone that has been reading other people’s blogs for the last five or six years - in that time, I’ve learned quite a bit about them, and from experience I can tell you some things that will put me off visiting your website ever again. Lists are in my opinion the best type of blog post around, as they’re not just easy to read but also have a more structured feel to them than long, rambling blog posts; here’s five things I hate about your website.

1) It looks like crap.

You may have the best content in the world, but if your blog looks like something out of the 70s I’m not going to come back. Other websites have good quality too, and with them I don’t have to strain to read what they’re blogging about, or have to wonder why that bright green sidebar is matched with the shocking pink header - make sure your website looks good or else people just aren’t going to become repeat visitors. Also, while there may be a lot of funky Wordpress widgets, please don’t clutter up your sidebar with them - the more they are, the more confused I get.

2) Your content isn’t king.

If your content looks like it was written by a kid who had just learned his alphabet, or even worse like one of those teenagers that only type in txt spk all the time, I’ll go and find someone with a more mature blog and content that’s understandable. Another gripe I have is that your content just isn’t interesting… there’s a thousand other blogs I could go search for informative content, so please - make yourself just a little more interesting than the next one? Throw in some humour or something, it’s not that hard.

3) You don’t reward your readers.

It is the readers that make or break a website, and even more so if it is a blog - without your readers, you might as well give up right now as it’s not good only having internet ghosts read your content. Your readers contribute to the community, yet you don’t reward them - put up the Top Commentators widget, get the Dofollow plugin - it’s the very least you can do.

Another thing you can use to reward your readers is by having contests - every so often, and you don’t even have to offer expensive prizes - your readers probably would be overjoyed to win something, even if it’s just Entrecard credits. I’ll be having a contest to get some buzz out for Da Blogger soon, so make sure you take part :)

4) You don’t show link love.

Yeah, ok - you satisfy the above requirements, but you never link to other blogs in the industry. Why not? I know there are other good websites out there apart from yours, and you know that too, so why not give me something to read, just in case I’ve already read your stuff and found it boring? Remember, building relationships and networking in the blogosphere is something that is vitally important, so you better start showing some link love - now.

Remember, linking to a website can send you some traffic - the owner of the blog will at very least check out your website, and if you link to a specific post, the trackback left could send you some visitors too. In fact, let’s experiment right now - these are the bloggers that are the chosen ones. How many of them do you think will visit? :)

5) You aren’t consistent

This is mainly about post frequency, but it also relates to your opinions - you post daily for a month and then don’t post again for a year; you say that buying links in one post and follow it up with your next one talking about the advertising you just bought. If you’re not consistent, I’m not going to read your posts, as you lose all credibility - if your opinions are constantly changing, or you you don’t practise what you preach, then why should I care what you have to say?

Hope the above post helped, and let me know below what you thought of it :)

If you are one of the bloggers I linked to above, and got scared by the title of this post when you saw it in your Wordpress dashboard, don’t worry; I love you guys :razz:

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