The blog explosion that the internet has been enjoying (or cursed with, depending on your point of view) reminds me very much of the initial internet explosion in the 90’s. There are blogs for whatever tickles your fancy, some of them very close to the best commercial websites in their niche, others little more than online diaries where the author vomits out excruciatingly boring minutia of their daily lives. (I really don’t care what your kitten did after breakfast, and I care even less to read SEO tips from a pagerank 0 website with such an offending design that it burns my retinas to look at.)

Blogs are both everything that is great, and everything that is wrong with the internet. The internet almost imploded after everyone who thought that a web presence meant surefire riches realized that it didn’t, and if you worked in IT you felt that, because a whole lot of jobs went away when that happened. Will the proliferation of blogs continue, or will the whole thing implode? Is it reasonable to expect that people can continue to make so much money off properly targeted, well monetized blogs? I don’t know, but I do know 5 Ways to Drive Me Away From Your Blog.

1. Your Blog Is About Nothing Nothing makes me run faster than inane blogs that have no focus, or are too personal. Really, go to a bookstore and buy one of those books full of blank pages and keep a journal. You may care to read your thoughts again some time down the road, but much like family photos, no one else cares.

Another way to lose me is if your blog meanders all over the place. Monday you’re a tech blog. Tuesday you talk about Web 2.0, Wednesday you’re on to the presidential primaries. There are a few very smart, interesting people that have made a career of this. You’re not one of them. Pick a niche already.

2. I Can’t Find Your Blog Beneath All The Monetization I certainly don’t begrudge anyone who is taking the time and effort to create web content the opportunity to make some income from their labor, but please monetize wisely. Use sparse advertisement in locations that pay.

Here’s some clues you are going about it the wrong way:

• You have Adsense, Adbrite, Linkworth, Text Link and Affiliate Ads. All on the same page.
• You have some sort of ad placed between every single piece of content on your site.
• A good portion of your content consists of some sort of paid article.
• You’ve utilized all of the above, in addition to in-link AND interstitial ads.

Chances are if you’re guilty of any of the above, you aren’t making too much money off your site anyway. Focus on your content, monetize wisely, and the revenue will come.

3. Your Blog Is Broken Your header contains a php error. If I actually find something interesting on your pathetic blog and try to leave a comment, I get a Wordpress database error page. Your content overflows into your sidebar, which extends 2000 pixels beyond the confines of my web browser window.

FIX YOUR SITE!

Anybody who really takes blogging seriously is probably going to absorb a little xhtml and css knowledge along the way. Take the time to make sure your site is functioning for the people that find it. Better yet, get your site to validate, and check it in more than one web browser.

I’ve made designs that looked fantastic in Safari, only to find they had a major flaw in Firefox, and vice versa. Make sure that everyone sees what you want them to. CONTROL your viewers’ experience, don’t send them on a wild ride.

This is a good time to talk about validation. If you are capable of getting your xhtml and css to validate, do so. You are one major step closer to making sure that everyone’s experience is the same. When something comes along down the road that breaks your site, you will have to do less hunting to find the cause.

In my experience, plugins are the biggest culprit in breaking website’s validation. Check new plugins, and choose your plugins wisely. If you find a plugin that adds something you really like to your site, is it worth it if it generates 493 xhtml errors, or causes duplicate pages that make Google scowl?

If that is too much for you, then please pick a theme that works out of the box, and don’t screw it up.

4. Your Blog Looks Like It Was Designed By Ronald McDonald On LSD. Good design is appealing, isn’t it? I mean, why else would you drive an Audi when you could be tooling down the road in a Kia? A design that is easy on the eye, or one that is eye catching, goes a long way toward making your viewer settle in comfortably to see what you have to offer.

I do not want to be anywhere near your site if:

• You think color is great, therefore every color is even better.
• You expect me to read yellow text on a white background.
• You think MySpace layouts are rad.
• You like monochromatic schemes, and also think earthtones are cool. Hint: grays and browns don’t go together.
• Your site is so colorful and so busy I get vertigo within 10 seconds of surfing in.

Sometimes less is more. You can design some pretty cool layouts that look great in a vacuum, but once they become populated with content, they’re too much. Never be afraid to take styling cues from successful sites. Don’t try to incorporate every good idea you come across into your site, but do experiment. Finding a winning layout requires a lot of trial and error. This is where it helps to be a little obsessive-compulsive. But not too much. Don’t screw it up once you finally get it right.

5. Your Blog Mirrors Larger, More Successful Blogs You read the feeds of all your influences, and then rewrite and post their articles, usually within hours of the original article being posted. What do I need you for? Your blog serves no purpose if you are just rehashing what the big boys write.

There is actually a large, successful blog that must read my feed, because they consistently post articles that I put out a few hours ago, yesterday, or a few days ago. I wouldn’t mind so much if they would throw me a bone now and again and credit my site as a source. It irks me a whole lot more because the site that does it is a huge site with lots of traffic, and probably wheelbarrows full of ad revenue. At least I must be doing a pretty good job if they are copying me.

Don’t let my cynicism dissuade you. Go forth and blog, just do so with studied effort and passion for what you do. You are taking your time, time away from things that have meaning, like family and relationships, to create web content.

Make it count.

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