I was reading a hair blog last week (hosted on Blogger) and got so frustrated with the navigation, I left.
It led me to think of things I don’t like about some blogs.
1) I Can’t Find Your Content
I stumbled upon a very well-written article about hair last week. The content was so juicy, I immediately longed for more. Problem was, I couldn’t find anything else the author had written.
No archives.
No recent posts.
No categories.
Nothing but the last post on the homepage.
The left and right navs were flooded with ads, social networking widgets, and other random links and buttons that trashed the experience.
Maybe the recent posts were buried there somewhere, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find them.
2) You Make Commenting a Pain
What if I don’t have a Blogger, OpenID or Discus account? Now what? What happened to the option where I can leave my name and URL so I can comment?
I notice this more with Blogger blogs. To prevent spam and anonymous trolling, many people disable the option to comment with your Name/URL. Instead, you need a profile with various sites (Blogger, Discus, etc.) before you can comment.
I can understand wanting to prevent spam, but don’t make it too difficult for your readers to join in the conversation. Most people aren’t going to leave your site to sign up for an account just to comment on your blog.
Use anti-spam plugins like Askimet (if available for your blog platform) and take advantage of comment moderation so you can review every comment before it’s published.
3) I Don’t Like Flying Things
Are you serious? Is this some video game?
You’re really going to make me chase that flying subscription box around the screen with my mouse? And now you hide the close function so I can’t get rid of it?
Oh I get it. I have to enter my e-mail and subscribe to get the box to go away? Ahhhhhhh, I see.
OK…
Bye!
P.S. The exit pop-up asking if I’m sure I want to leave looks desperate and is equally annoying as the flying e-mail form.
4) Your Posts are One Giant Paragraph
If you befriend one piece of HTML markup, make it the paragraph tag (<p>).
Ironically, writing in paragraphs is one of the first lessons we’re taught about writing, yet for some strange reason many people don’t apply this lesson online.
Remember, your readers love to scan and probably don’t like headaches. Chopping up your piece into 3-4 line paragraphs will make it easier on their eyes.
5) You Seem Greedy
I make a conscious effort to keep selling to a minimum on this blog. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with selling. Of course, everyone has a different strategy and you should do what you feel is best.
I just think you should watch your sell/inform ratio. Unless you have the kind of site where people expect to spend money (shopping, charity sites, etc.), you really should be conscious of how much you sell.
It’s interesting that I receive so many questions about building backlinks, making more money, etc., yet no one ever asks me how to build credibility.
‘Cause let’s face it. Without it, you aren’t really going to sell a whole lot.
There’s still too much “build and they will come” and “advertise and they will buy” mentalities online. If you aren’t taking the steps to prove that you are…
1) Credible
2) Can be trusted
3) Genuinely interested in helping others…
You will have some tough days ahead in the selling department.
—————————————————
What causes you to leave certain blogs?
Hi Lisa
I have to say that I came to your site via a YouTube video and it is great to read such honest comments off you regarding websites.
Like you I hate those pop up boxes that jump up in your face and all the other annoying stuff that people think are great and add to their site.
So as you have such a lovely way of saying things and are of a similar mindset regarding site design I will be avidly following your advice.
Well done and thanks Rob
Yet, another excellent post, Lisa, which gives me a call to action.
I am not guilty of any of those mentioned (Phew!), however I am quite conscious of not having too many random links on the side bars, but I do need them due to the nature of my blog.
Every now and then I do a ‘stock take’ and remove those links, I think are redundant.
My three irritants are:-
A great blog, which does not include a visible HOME link.
A site that does not include a SEARCH box.
I hate to say, it but gadgets that blink at me, they are so annoying and distracting, expecially those that have a sparkling effect – aaggh!
Great post
Lisa, this is great. I just started blogging and this information is truly going to help me.
I love your website.
You won’t like my blog, then. For, even though I meet all your criteria for sticking around, I purposefully don’t include sidebar links of recent posts and categories. Sigh.
What an excellent post. There are some similar things that make me leave blogs, such as cluttered design, complicated comment system, pop up ads, and keywords spamming.
Thanks for sharing your ideas.
It is so true its funny. They are obvious reasons that bloggers forget to check on their blog.
Definitely the commenting system point you make. Having just read what you say about allowing guests to post, I checked all my blog settings and realised some of them were still set to default.
Great post!
Hey Lisa, nice ideas here.
I would like you take a stop at my financial blog harvestwages.com and post critics about it on your site. Did you comment on that hair blog you visited? i mean leaving some critics. I think that could be of help to the site owner.
SOO true!
I’m glad there are people like you that think the exact same way I do when I go to various blogs. For example, your second point just drives me nuts. WHY?! I semi-understand, but there are so many great spam filters out there, it’s really not necessary.
Another great point with credibility. Is there a way to show credibility when you’re first starting out (with minimal content to fall back on)? That might be the most difficult part about a blog/site-showing that you are, indeed, credible.
Last thing, although it was mentioned in a previous comment, I HATE spelling/grammar issues. They stick out like a sore thumb to me. I feel like I’m in the minority there, but regardless, there’s no greater way to lose credibility and have me leave.
hi lisa! i am a newbie here in the internet of the so called creating a website and how to monetize it. I am raul from Philippines and i really find your website very helpful. what can you suggest to start up with on creating a website? is it site build it?
i am very new and still have to learn so many things before i would jump on to something..
i hope you could help me and give a juicy advice on where to start with.
thank you very much.
P.S. i know you are very busy person but i hope you can help me coz you really inspired me a lot and i am willing to invest my time and effort on this know-how in order for me to become knowledgeable in this craft. thank you so much..
typical beginner mistakes . . .
to TRIMAR’s comment – initially it is recommended to blog regularly for 6+ months. regularly means once a day at least, while some get away with 1 every two days. quality of content is definitely key however. once momentum has been built, one can relax a bit and post less frequently (one or twice per week) – again, quality is the most critical
personal advice: work on your blog religiously w/o even the thought of profiting from it.
My…I thing you will leave mine too. Yes I agree that we need to write compelling content and more importantly…organize it into paragraph. 🙂
I agree on almost all points. However, what about a new blog? It may not have achieves page if it’s just set up for few days, may be the owner lacks experience.
Ditto Ditto Lisa! I love your last point about hardly ever getting asked how to build credibility!
Joe Cannon
http://www.Supplement-Geek.com
Lisa,
I was told to keep the number of new posts to 2 or 3 per day so that it would appear that a human is behind the postings.
Does that make sense? What about the websites that have multiple people submitting posts everyday?
Hi Lisa,
Well i agree with all of your points except the “You Make Commenting a Pain” because i don’t believe that there would be such a fool on internet who don’t have facebook/twitter account!
1. Pop-up advertising. 2. Ads in the content area. These are the things I hate most. I will leave right away.
I don’t notice a whole lot of poor writing (grammatically), maybe I’m more tolerent than others.
I will not create an account to comment. I have my accounts, and that is it. I will also not use my Facebook or Twitter account to comment on a random blog. I can either post with my first name and email or I will leave. Plain and simple. Which is a shame because Youtube has shown us that the comments can grow to and add the the fun factor of an article or even become more compelling than the original article itself.
Thats my 2 cents.
Lisa girl, you hit the nail on the head! Everything you mentioned is what annoys me. I especially hate the flying email subscription box that doesn’t have a “close” option. I’ll leave in a second because of that. I shouldn’t have to give you my information just to view your content. You should feel privileged that I even want to read your content.
I can’t think of anything extra that bugs me. You pretty much covered it all. Continue sharing your opinions and keeping it real Lisa. We all learn so much from you.
Pop ups, they are a pain, as Carolee mentioned you cant close them off, and sometimes the information is what you are looking for.
And then when you close the page another pop up giving you one more chance to stay…
Maybe a comment box in the pop up might let the webmaster know the users thoughts
Hi lisa ! than heavens who made me stumble on your website! am so frustrated with my blog..using blogger! yes i saw your video about blog hosts! it opened my eyes i should say.
Now,first, i have a blog where no body has gone(am thinking) because no comment has been left?!
second,i want to create a website for my small new jewelry business,am not sure where to start and i wonder if you do that ?
I have sold face to face and now demand for a website is mounting!
i was thinking,how do i make my blog ( where i decided to put my stuff) successful ? or should i shut it down and open a paid website and post there?
Am just starting out and some things look like moon physics to me !
please help me Lisa !
thanks ,
charity.
Pretty good information Lisa, I’m really in love with your website. Its so important that the people who enter to your blog can see your intentions of help them about topic or just write huge content that people should be interested in. Not just make some money online or promote a website inside your blog, you have to provide fresh content every day you can or at least every week.
Tutoriales
this is a good one…now I’m sitting here thinking….is that me?
Lisa ,, I love to read you articles and your news letters are my favorites,, all points you mentioned are write ,, the main thing I agree with is the display of the screen ,, too small font make me leave at once,, With Marios, I don’t like reading solid text with out any illustration,, spaces are much easier to me to follow,, I think these annoying blogs filled with adds, pop ups and poor text formating are a result of new silly softwares called autobloggers.. :S
All these things are the main reason any blog fail..but hopefully people do their research and learn how to really setup an friendly blog..
“TrafficColeman “Signing Off”
Point 5
1) Credible
2) Can be trusted
3) Genuinely interested in helping others…
This seems to be the hardest part for marketers these days to realize.
Took me a while to understand.
What a great post!
All of these are so true. First one is rarely a problem, or maybe the blog is new, but others are so annoying, especially when you’re searching for something and you come on a site where they offer you backlinks and you can’t close the damn window. I don’t know what kind of marketing is that..
I don’t know if it was mentioned in previous comments, but sometimes the writer writes so weirdly; no capital letters, no commas and it really disturbs you.
Good luck!
Great article Lisa!
Usually you can tell within the first paragraph if someone is actually an authority in their niche.
The other day, I found really good article that incited me to read it almost word-for-word. I quickly left the page about half way through because there was an annoying banner blinking and flashing right next to the text.
Lisa, out of 10 possible I am giving you 10+ for this post. Thank you.
Lisa I just love your blog. Some blogs that I have visited are rather too lengthy for me. I will leave it immediately.
Lisa ~ I agree with you about commenting on some Blogger blogs. It is so frustrating to finish reading a post only to find out that I cannot comment with a name/url combo.
What I realized is that the default Blogger set up does not allow the name/url combo for commenting. So, unless a person actually goes into settings and changes the preference – their readers will not be able to comment in this manner.
Unfortunately, I think that many people are not even aware that they are losing out on comments from many of their readers.
I have reached the point where I will check the comment field first – even before I read the post. If I will be unable to comment – I often move on without investing any more time.
One thing I find annoying are ‘flashing’ ads while I’m trying to read an article because my eye keeps being drawn to the movement. AdSense can have some flashing image ads; I’m not sure if this can be controlled, other than just using text ads. But they are good at doing their job by getting my attention, but I just don’t like them when I’m trying to read anything of length. I may leave the site.
Hey Lisa –
The other day I went to a website * moneymutal.com * that I saw featured on TV. I checked it declared it spam and tried to close the window. Then the screen turned dark and a ” virtual chat agent ” appeared in full color. I knew right off that she was built for spam so I just watched her make an idiot of herself then I asked her what she would say if I left the chat and she replied ” fantastic sign up for this service ( link ) here “. I closed it out shocked by the fact that ” Montel Williams ” featured it on TV. Very unproffesional ….
LOL- just happened to remember the “floating subscription box” you mentioned…
I ran into two of them the other day on blog posts I REALLY wanted to read, but couldn’t get rid of the sub. boxes- so frustrating.
So I left!
I JUST wrote about this subject last week. Of course, in my own style….
http://workingathomeadvice.com/make-your-blog-an-easy-read/
I absolutely HATE when people have one HUGE paragraph.
If it sounds really, really good, I may copy & paste into a Word document or something & double space it myself just to read.
But most likely, I’ll leave instead.
I appreciate this one and must agree on all items, specially chasing the subscription box and the one big paragraph. We like to read and the fastest we can get the information through our eyes the better.
Don’t forget the auto-playing music!!!
The making too difficult to comment thing really gets on my nerves. More often not I end up not leaving comments on blogs even if I feel like I really have something to say just because I have to have some kind of account to comment. It’s annoying. I already have enough accounts.
YES! Lisa, you have definitely touched some points that newbies (such as myself) are able to jot down and keep close to our PC.
I ABSOLUTELY hate the flying subscription box thingy. LOL. it annoys me because I get so focused on reading the content that attracted me to the site in the first place! then up pops 3-4 boxes about “why it’s so important to subscribe to my blog”
Thank you for those important points, you ROCK (as usual) LOL
Agree with all of them and wanted to say I hate small font too. I don’t even bother to zoom in, just loose the desire to read it 🙂
Too many ads and Adsense is definitely a turn off.
I also ran into a blog yesterday, had a great headline (at least it was interesting to me), so I click and that is the post. That’s all. Nothing else! OMG, I was so annoyed!
I try to keep in mind that people want some info and it’s not about me, it’s about them.
Hm, what makes me leave immidiately a blog is the lack of content and the huge amount of ads (over 5 units of ads, popups, popunders etc).
Another thing is the use of many colors. I like single-colored blogs, too many colors are far too tiring.
But in the end is there really a difference?
Lisa, thanks so much for another great blog post! I was laughing when I read # 3..the flying things ^^ I hate those windows too!
I’ve just recently found your website and enjoyed reading every bit of it! I’m working on a huge website project right now and reading your website motivates me even more 🙂 You are a huge inspiration for me! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
-Alex
Good Advice for someone like me who has just started a blog and wants to gain as many loyal reads as possible.
Hey Lisa. I agree with Paul, this post had me laughing the whole way through.
Most likely I can relate because when I first started using Blogger, even I had problems responding to comments on my own blog. LOL! At the time I didn’t realize what a lousy default commenting system Blogger has. And Disqus is not all that great either. I installed Intense Debate simply because of the CommentLuv Plugin. I don’t know why Disqus doesn’t come with CommentLuv nor did I try to find out. I just know that after I installed Intense Debate my comments increased drastically and I continue to get comments even on the one blog that I haven’t updated in months.
I just left a site that had an intriguing title – following by a huge block of AdSense and not one line of text above the fold. <<Bye, bye is right! 😉
Fonts that are too small used to be another turn-off but with Google Chrome now it's so easy to increase the font size that I normally stick around. But in the back of my mind I keep thinking "the person that owns this blog has got to be under 30".
Thanks for the chuckles Lisa and enjoy the rest of your day.
Your Posts are One Giant Paragraph, I hate that! By now we should realize that we are visual human beings, and nobody has time to read a 2000 words post without a photo or a bullets, Break it up, put some cool images and your post will be 100% better,
Marios
I totally agree with all five of these reasons. I would just add that blogs that are filled with grammatical and spelling errors literally make me scream!! A blog may have good content and information but I will stop reading if it appears that the author is too lazy to proofread!
I am in the process of building an SBI site and would also like to build a blog so I’ve been spending a lot of time seeing what’s out there, and for the most part, I am not impressed. There are many blogs around but the well written ones are few and far between.
I truly enjoy your site, thanks for all of the helpful insight.
Grammar and spelling! Yes, can’t believe I didn’t think of that. Always a turn off.
I heartily agree with all five reasons you discuss here. A couple of points from my perspective:
1. I don’t like cluttered blogs. 99% of the time I’ve come to a blog to read a post. I want my eyes to be able to read the text of the post without getting distracted by the sidebar or header. I understand the need for navigation, subscription information, and images to items the blogger sells or promotes, but when its too loud — and especially if it moves — I’m usually out the door.
2. I don’t like those pop-ups that cover what I’m reading and ask me to subscribe. Some are immediate; others appear after a set time. Either way, they are annoying. They break my concentration on the writing, and they break any connection I was making with the blogger.
Number 4 is most prevalent in my field. Bad writing makes me leave and never go back. I’m an old high school and college English teacher. I can wade through some pretty terrible writing. But ninety-five out of a hundred blogs are simply not worth reading. I guess people think that “Publish” means “Finished.”
On the bright side, the competition is easier.
Thanks, Lisa
You always give good advice for bloggers. It is really difficult to have good contents 4 me, i start my blog, may be people leave it but i tried hard. Any I read your free books, it helps me and inspired me to be professional blogger.
While I like to read your posts, this one made me chuckle. I have similar 5 items on my list of why I don’t read the content of a blog, especially the first two.
Many people create a blog and expect to make money. Unfortunately, they don’t realize that it takes time, and drowning their entire blog in ads will not make more than a few cents.
The second one is also one that I have been annoyed with more recently. To me, anyways, it seems more people have been using a 3rd party commenting system, with the biggest being Discus. I don’t want to sign up just to write a comment, so at that point I just leave. It’s a shame since I have read some great posts, and was ready to comment when I came across a registration system.
I don’t mind having to register (DISQUS) to comment. What I detest is the DISQUS comment box. I like to review my comments before hitting submit, checking for glaring grammar/spelling/typos. Requiring to scroll up and down line by line is painful.
(I’m sure you already know the following, but perhaps your readers do not.)
DISQUS allows editing in two ways. The first method, obviously, is to edit your work before you click the Submit button.
The second method is to submit your work and then edit. The problem with this method is that the post you are editing is already online, and may have been read before you post your edited version. Also, you will probably find that you have two versions of your post online. This always happens when I use this method. I know because (1) I can see it, and (2) I sometimes get hits on both versions.
You could also build your post in DISQUS, then cut it, and create a Word document. Do your editing in Word, then cut it and move it back to DISQUS. The problem here is that you may (probably) have two different size fonts in your post, and I have not found a DISQUS “change font size” function.
There just doesn’t seem to be a way to edit, that doesn’t create another problem.
Glad to see I’m not the only one ‘disgusted’ with the ‘Discus’ commenting system. I run from blogs using it. Useless. Feel free to check out my hair website.