Jakob Nielsen has put together an interesting article with the Top Ten Design Mistakes that he sees bloggers making. It’s a pretty insightful list – not definitive by any means – but definitely helpful in my mind.
1. No Author Biographies – I’m amazed that so many blogs don’t have any information about who is the behind them. Not essential information but common sense in my books to be transparent enough to tell people who you are.
2. No Author Photo – for me this is not a must – but it does add something personal to a blog.
3. Nondescript Posting Titles – regular readers will know about my passion for post titles – enough said
4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go – I agree – it also helps with SEO to use make links more descriptive
5. Classic Hits are Buried – So true – highlight your best posts or they’ll go unseen after dropping from the front page
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation – has anyone ever used a calendar to navigate a blog or is it just me who avoids them?
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency – again something I’ve written quite a bit about. It’s not about high or low posting frequency – but regular posting. Find your rhythm and stick to it.
8. Mixing Topics – Stick to you niche
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss – so true. Once you hit publish you lose control over who will ever see what you write. Be careful.
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service – the quote of this article is ‘Letting somebody else own your name means that they own your destiny on the Internet.’ So true.
What mistakes do you see a lot of bloggers making?
I’ll add a brief one which is related to Jakob’s first one:
No Contact Details – A few weeks ago I was surfing through some blogs in an effort to build some relationships with some new bloggers and I was amazed – not actually I was stunned – but the number of bloggers that have no personal way of contacting them. Most of them had comments – but so many had no way to get an email to them.
The result was that I didn’t/couldn’t contact them and we both missed out on an opportunity to connect.
