Things You’re Doing That Hurt Your Blog

What kinds of blogs do you read every day? Are they funny, insightful, telling, emotional, or relatable? Chances are, the blogs you keep coming back to have a theme (though I’m not entirely sure what mine is) I know that having a point to your post or blog will help keep your followers engaged.


It seems there’s a lot of posts out there on what to do for your blog, but not a lot on what not to do.


Here, in my opinion, are 8 things you’re doing that hurt your blog.

 

– Adding a “Read More”

A “Read More” gives your viewers a snippet of your post, forcing them to click “read more” if they want to continue reading. Unless it’s a particularly juicy story or you are raking in the page views, asking me to read more is annoying. Sometimes I don’t want to click read more and wait for you page to load. Your best bet, especially if you’re starting out, or if you just want genuine readers, is to ditch the “read more” button.

– No Blog Image

You know that having an image for your blog helps your readers identify with your post, but why? Well for one thing, it can help break up the text. But it also contributes to pageviews. You can’t pin an image-less post.  For me, Bloglovin is my largest traffic resource to my blog. If there’s no image, Bloglovin can’t pull a feature, making the post on show up on the feed as either blank, or with my signature, which might confuse the reader. They might not read the post at all.

– A Messy Sidebar

This is something I need to work on. With a sidebar full of sponsored ads, Google advertisements, social media links, a photo of myself… and more, it’s hard to keep it clean. Take a look at what is necessary and what you can ditch. The cleaner, the better. This goes for your whole blog design, really.

-No Pin It Button

Sarah has a fantastic tutorial on how to add a pin it button to your blog. Do it. It’s so easy. It goes well with the aesthetic of your blog and encourages people to pin. Win, win. Just don’t make it HUGE so that if someone mouses over the image they can no longer see the picture.

-Not Sharing on Social

Just because your Facebook page doesn’t have a large reach, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t update your new post. I hardly get any hits from Google Plus, but you can bet I hit the +1 every time I publish a new post. You never know where your post might take off from. (P.S. You need a Facebook page for your blog).

-Unclear

Does your title explain or at least hint at your post. Are you talking about someone within the body and I have no idea who they are? Read through it as if you’ve never read this blog before and if it’s confusing to you, change it up a bit.

– Not Editing Photos

I JUST signed up for Photoshop (welcome to 2009, Helene) but I still have a place in my heart for PicMonkey. Regardless, you will need to edit photos at some point in time. Having the wrong size images or messy images just doesn’t cut it. Plus, you might want to add some text to your images.

-When your post has no point

A good old recap of what’s going on in your life is cool, but what is interesting about it? I always ask myself: why would anyone WANT to read this? Listing off the fact that you did laundry and washed your car is fine, but make it interesting.


What do you think bloggers should avoid?