3 Annoying Blogging Practices
I confess. I have a tendency to get annoyed easily. Little things that don’t bother most people can drive me up the wall. Whether it be someone driving down the highway with their blinker stuck on for miles at a time or a stranger trying to strike up a meaningless conversation with me while waiting in line, I often suffer from not having enough patience. Think of me as your own Larry David (and if you don’t watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, what’s wrong with you?…also, for the record I’m not old or bald).
Needless to say, this lack of patience and tolerance carries over to the online world as well. In particular, there are some things that bloggers do that drive me nuts.
Here are just 3 of the many annoying blogging practices that I’ve seen.
1. Requiring Registration to Comment—Okay, this is just stupid. The whole reason blogging has become so popular is that it allows everyone to have their voice heard. The best blogs are an open forum for exchanging ideas. They are a conversation. So, why would you make it difficult for your readers to converse with you? I’m a firm believer in making things as easy for your audience as possible. That means not requiring them to fill out a registration form and activate their account when they simply want to post a quick comment. I don’t think I’ve ever commented on a blog that asked me to register first, and I certainly don’t plan on ever doing it in the future. If your blog asks me to register, rest assured I will click “back” and never visit your site again.
2. Only Linking Back to Their Main Site—Look, I know everyone has their own reason for blogging. Some people are looking to build brand awareness. Others are just looking to increase their search engine rankings. And others still just do it to drive traffic to their main site. Often times, these bloggers think the best way to drive traffic to their site is to constantly link back to it. What they fail to realize is it makes their blog read like more of an advertisement than an actual blog that adds value to the user experience. If you only link back to your own website, it makes readers think you’re either just trying to sell them something or you aren’t giving them access to a full range of information on the topic at hand. Linking to outside sources adds credibility to your blog, and it creates the perception that your blog is the authority site in your niche.
3. Not Delivering on the Headline—About a year ago, I remember coming across a post that was supposed to offer 10 internet marketing tips. Once I clicked on the post, I found it only had 3 tips; it told the reader if he or she wanted the other 7 tips they would have to wait for a future post. What?! If you make a promise in your headline, you better deliver on it. If not, you’ll end up making readers very angry. Worse, you’ll come off as gimmicky and a liar.
Which blogging practices annoy you most? Share your pet peeves in the replies.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:32 am
In some instances, requiring registration before comments is essential to avoid those nasty spambots.
I once woke up in the morning, having to go through 300 new comments, of which 295 were porn-spam….
there’s “annoying” for ya
June 1st, 2009 at 8:33 am
#1 is probably the most annoying one of them all. Every time I come across a blog that requires registration to comment I think to myself either these people just don’t “get it” or they want to really challenge their readers. I simply move on to the next blog. I have too many thing to do on a day to day basis already.
The other really big pet peeve I have is the difficult CAPTCHA to comments. I elaborate on this a bit in a post I did back in December Is Your CAPTCHA Killing Your Business?
The biggest annoyance is whent you take the time to leave a well though out comment and fail the CAPTCHA and bam your comment is gone and you have to rewrite it. Man that irkes me. Sometimes I just move on rather than write the comment again.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:36 am
HI, Eric! Thnaks for taking the time to fill us in, especially those of us who mean well with our blogs, but don’t know all of the great things (like how to add other links) yet! This will make me work a little harder to find out such things. Oh, by the way, on a more personal level; I am one of those people who strike up conversation while waiting in line (I am concious of making it pertinent to the situation, so as not to be meaningless), because I’ve found some of the most delightful, interesting and now GOOD friends, while waiting there. Maybe you’ll have a little more patience with the next line you’re in (or be sure to keep your head down and wear ear buds!). Thanks again!
June 1st, 2009 at 8:43 am
Some useful tips-without sounding grumpy and cynical. I think the biggest turn off for blogs is your #1. Blogging is meant to bring down the barriers of communication and open up exchanges.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:49 am
My biggest blogging pet peeve is without a doubt the dreaded “comment with anchor text and no name” deal.
Please people leave your freaking name when you leave a comment, and not anchor text. At the very least include your name with your anchor text. But stop with the nameless comments.
Arrggghhhh.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:56 am
Gerald,
Great point about CAPTCHA. I’m all for cutting down on spam and everything, but at what cost to your readers? Plus, how hard is it to just moderate your comments through WordPress like everyone else?
June 1st, 2009 at 9:00 am
I hear what your saying – I am new to twitter and not sure what to write sometimes….. or whats expected to make it fun to read….
also i’ve never blogged anyone in my life – but i have now set up a blogspot on our site – i am more than happy to receive any advise as to what to write
that will not annoy!!! here in the UK we probably view things differently – and it’s all a bit of fun :- anyway i have a proverb for you i used to say to my kids when they were growing up – reads like this:-
patients is a virtue!
virtue is a grace!
both of them together
make a very pleasent face………..
and i’m sure you have a pleasent face…….
regards
June 1st, 2009 at 11:49 am
D’you know, I’ve never really thought about #1 all that deeply before. I think coming from a forum administrator background, it’s an automatic thing to make people register to comment. But after reading this I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re absolutely correct. With the functions already in place within wordpress to combat spam, making people register is totally unnecessary! I’ve since switched off registration for my blogs and I’m hoping this results in the interaction I’ve been lacking thus far.
Thank you for making some very good points that are worth thinking on. (Well worth a RT I think!)
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:12 am
Annoyances understood.
I try to copy everything before making any other moves. It sure doesn’t feel good when your long hard work gets wiped away with no hope of return. The security backfires.
On the other hand, getting spammed with thousands of bogus blog posts can become a problem for administrators and users. Spammers have no mercy.
I prefer no registration posting as well. But, there are some sites/blogs I find worthy of a registration.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:33 am
Eric,
That’s true about moderating comments. Also Akismet works great for comments spam and there is a comment form plugin called spam free that works well for comment for that works without the use of the annoying captcha. There is another good plugin called bad behavior that works by Identifying if the http: request looks spammy or malicious. So there are many good alternatives to the CAPTCHA actually.
June 4th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
@Christine–I think my problem with talking to people while waiting in line is that the people who end up talking to me are always weirdos talking about crazy personal stuff.
@Missy–such a great point. Again, blogging is about conversing with one another. I don’t want to interact with someone in the comments section whose name is “New York Flower Arranger.’
April 27th, 2010 at 7:52 am
[...] don’t have to be a miserable jerk who’s always griping about something, but talking about the things that annoy you can help readers get to know you better. More times than not, they’ll probably agree with your [...]