I have a blog, and I read blogs. Neither of those facts makes me any sort of blogging pro, but in my opinion, these tips will make reading your blog more enjoyable for anyone who visits. 🙂
1) Make an “About” page.
Keep it fairly short, but give me the basics I need to know for your blog to make sense if this is my first visit. For instance: If you frequently blog about your kids, tell me their ages and [blog] names. This makes my blog-reading life much less confusing. Update anytime something significant changes.
2) Streamline your categories.
Identify the main things you blog about, and make those your categories. Then make them easy for me to find, either in a navigation bar, or perhaps in your sidebar.
3) Let me read your feed in my feed reader.
In this post by Tentblogger, he says it pretty bluntly: “If your visitor has taken the time to subscribe to your blog then you should do everything that you possibly can to serve them the content in the fullest way possible! I believe that if they want to read it via their RSS Reader then they want to read it IN their RSS Reader!”
There are some really wonderful blogs that I’d like to subscribe to, but if I can’t read the feed in my feed reader, then what’s the point of subscribing?
4) Let me easily turn off music.
If you choose to have music, please make it EASY for me to turn off. I often have more than one tab open in my browser to read several blog articles, and having several different blogs playing music all at once is particularly crazy-making.
If you choose to allow comments, please make it easy. . .
5a) Double-check your comment settings.
On blogger, for instance, if you choose “users with google accounts,” that means no one can comment without a google account; that may eliminate comments from friends who don’t blog, or who only have accounts with other blog hosts.
5b) If possible, please don’t use captcha codes.
I hate spam, so I understand the reasoning behind it, but if at all possible, try using comment moderation instead of captcha codes. I know blogger and wordpress both allow this. (I love the fact that wordpress only requires that I moderate a comment from a commenter one time, and then they are on my “approved commenter” list.)
6) Paragraphs are your friend.
It’s so much easier to read (or occasionally skim) blog posts that have paragraphs. Maybe even put your main point in bold type. If you (like me) are too loquacious to keep every post short and to the point, it’s best to make it easy for readers to figure out what your point really is.
What suggestions would you add?
I’m a big fan of authentic conversation and always appreciate hearing what you have to say. Thanks for reading.
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