There are so many things to do with a blog, both in terms of design and textual content, that sometimes bloggers (particularly the newbies) get overwhelmed with the options and in desperation to make some extra cash, they make plenty of mistakes. If you are not very clear on the essentials of successful blogging, you can easily get into trouble and make your blog look unprofessional or less professional to readers. Given below are 8 bad practices that can ruin your blog’s professionalism immediately. Find out whether you are making these mistakes.
Don't Make These Mistakes on Your Blog
#1. Displaying Excessive Ads 
Most of the time, it’s quite difficult to resist the temptation. There’s nothing wrong with making money from your blog. However, you need to be a little more careful while placing ads on the blog. Excessive display of ads doesn’t only ruin the professional image of your blog, but it’s also a bad practice from Google’s point of view. So, don’t get tempted. Observe moderation.
#2. Not Using Social Media Sharing Buttons
Definitely, you want readers to share your blog’s content on social media platforms. But you should never distract them with too many or large-size social media buttons. It’s advisable to choose only those social network buttons that are popular with readers. You can certainly go with Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Google+ and LinkedIn share buttons.
#3. Picking Colors That Hurt the Eye
Colors have to play a vital role on the web. Some colors are quite easy to the eye while others may hinder reading. For example, pink and yellow colors make reading a blog very difficult, which is not professional. Blue, sea green, orange and gray are some of those colors that soothe the eyes. So, choose colors for your blog carefully.
#4. Having an Ugly Sign-up Form
The appearance of the sign-up or subscription form is an important part of the overall design of a blog. Whether you want to increase the number of blog subscribers and drive more traffic to your blog, you need to design a sign-up form which immediately impresses the readers.
#5. Leaving the About Us Page Incomplete
A lame or incomplete about us page reflects truly badly on the reputation of your blog. On the other hand, a well-crafted about us page can easily enhance a blog’s professional image. Readers will be interested in hearing your story only when they know a couple of things about you. Tell them who you are!
#6. Not Updating Regularly
In order to grow your blog and make money from it too, you need to develop a consistent publishing schedule. Readers visit your blog on a daily basis, looking for something fresh and interesting every time. If there’s long gap (a week or more), readers will take your blog very lightly. They will return to your blog only when they see you publish regularly.
#7. Annoying Readers with Pop-ups
Nothing annoys blog readers more than pop-ups. Intrusive ads like these can immediately ruin the professional image of your blog. Readers visit your blog because you offer them valuable content. Don’t use anything which interrupts the flow of reading. This is highly unprofessional.
#8. Using a Confusing Blog Layout
What’s the overall look and feel of your blog? While creating a layout for your blog, you should always consider the kind of audience you are seeking, as well as their specific requirements. Layout requirements may vary from one niche market to another. Always choose a blog layout which is clear, well-defined and professional. A good idea is to do some layout testing and find out what works best.
What other mistakes can make a blog look unprofessional; please feel free to share them in the comment section below!
Good solid tips Obaidul…
I always cringe a little when I hear the stats that people using pop-ups come up with – they clearly do work to get a higher sign up rate. But they sure annoy the hell out of me.
Seems like the themes of simplicity, consistency and clarity are behind your tips and I’m sure that anyone avoiding these mistakes will have a far better chance of building their blog successfully.
Thanks for stressing the points. Glad that you liked the tips, Jym!
A key factor not mentioned is the fact that so many blogs use incorrect spelling and grammar! Although I myself am not perfect when it comes to either of these, when I notice very simple mistakes on a website I find it very dissapointing that people cannot be bothered to proof read their work.
That’s certainly the most fundamental tip! It’s always advisable to re-check the entire blog post before hitting the publish button. Spellcheckers, for that matter, can also prove to be of help.
Thanks for your comment.
a good thing you brought this up about spelling and grammar correction. In the past, I used to make a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. One thing I noticed from making a number of errors in the past was that it was affecting my overall search engine rankings. Today, I’ve noticed that correcting myself in spelling and grammar not only betters my search engine optimization efforts, but, it also potentially increases online advertising revenue, as well as building online entrepreneurial character 🙂
Excellent tips Obaidul! Thanks Eleana for posting this. Yes, I agree, checking on spelling and layout is perhaps another good tip (“dissapointing” – with 2 ss! – our readers with typos is not something to aim for! But let’s face it, typos do creep in everywhere and are hard to get rid off…)
Thanks for being a part of the conversation, Claude!
I hate that pop up on a lot of wordpress sites that want you to signup or subscribe to some list. I know people promote it as an affilitiate thing, but it is a total turn off and very annoying. I close that thing as fast as it pops up and don’t stick around long. I think the affiliates that market it are the only ones benefiting because the end user experience it drives people away if anything.
You are very right, Ray!
very nice post i also dont like pop ups in any site but i see many movies related blogs use too much popup and ads
I don’t like blogs that display popups as I find them annoying. Some times I will start to read a blog post and then a few seconds later a popup would be displayed, which is very annoying.
I am still confused as to why some blogs still don’t have any of the share buttons, or they make them hard to find. Don’t they like it when someone shares their content?
Hey Obaidul really great article. One of my most favorite parts about turning Blog Engage into a business was the removal of the Google and sidebar ads. I felt so liberated when I got to remove them and see how fast the site was loading again. Man I can’t even start to explain who amazing that day felt.
I have all of my favorite social media buttons on my blog. I agree and think it’s a must when it comes to having a successful online blog these days. I try and stick with the most popular, twitter, dig, Facebook blog engage etc… great advice I’m going to tweet this one for sure I think many of my followers can benefit from simply reading this one!
Thanks for commenting, Brian!
I hate annoying pop-up and that’s why I love this blog as it doesn’t have any. If your audience like your article and your information then they would automatically subscribe for your blog. No need to put extra effort which go waste and ultimately annoy your readers.
Great points to create good and complete blog, usually when newbie creates his/her blog they try to concentrate on link building process and just ignore their “about me” page. They think that it’s my new blog and no-one is coming to see it and forget to complete it, which ultimately make a bad impression.
That’s a very accurate list, Obaidul. I agree with all of them. I neglected having a StumbleUpon button on my blog. When I added it, it started delivering a lot more traffic!
We really have to remember the details.
Darren
I dislike videos that play automatically, especially when I’m not expecting it and my speakers are turned up!
Nice post, Obaidul! And *whew* I think I’m in the clear. I see a lot of those pop-up things on blogs though and I always wonder how successful those things are. Everybody says they’re annoying but I keep seeing them more and more so I’m wondering if they work – even though they’re a pain.
Great tips Obaidul,
Excessive ads seem to be a hallmark of potential SERP lowering too. But all of these certainly have the absolute effect of lowering a readers enjoyment, which should be one of the primary points of anybody’s blog.
The one way I do violate this is with pop up. I agree, they are annoying but also incredibly effective. I’ve “sort of” compromise with myself on this. I have popups set to show ONLY for first time visitors and then only once a month recurring as a reminder for regular readers.
This way I get some of the benefits of the pop-up without intruding on regular readers more than one time a month.
I think it is a fair balance.
I will add a ninth one – Using small fonts. Not every one knows about ‘Ctrl +’
I forgot about this one Raj
Now these are tips that haven’t been rehashed like number 4 for example – ugly looking signup boxes are a turn off which is I am always changing mines LOL! However I did find a great looking signup subscription form that lays above header from ViperChill for free..
As for number 1, some of us might need a few guidelines on exactly what constitutes “excessive” 😳
The one way I do violate this is with pop up. I concur, they are irritating but also amazingly successful. I’ve “sort of” compromise with myself on this. I have popups set to display ONLY for first time website visitors and then only as soon as a month recurring as a reminder for regular readers. This way I get some of the advantages of the pop-up with out intruding on regular readers far more than one particular time a month.
I have to say that I agree with Steve on the popups. I don’t know many marketers that actually like them, but they are extremely effective for getting opt ins. over half my list is from my popups, and if I didn’t use them, I wouldn’t have nearly as many subscribers as I do. Since my list is where I make over 80% of my money, my focus is more on building the list and not pleasing every single freebie seeker who reads my blog once or twice.
Things I hate the most: popups, auto music (some people still think this is clever) and to much ads and options making thinks really confusing when I want to move around the website.
Nice post Obaidul. It looks like the comments show an overwhelming majority hate popups. It’s funny, I just purchased a cool WP plugin that includes a popup optin form and I let it run for a few days but couldn’t take it anymore. The stupid thing was driving me crazy on my own blog. I had to take it down.
I like your tips Obaidul. Make your blog easy on the eyes. Simple, clear, and uncluttered, so your readers can digest your content with ease, because that’s what they want to do. Thanks!
RB
Hey, Ryan. Thanks for dropping by!
Yeah nice tips Obaidul! This should be spammed/send to every starting “blogger”.
As most people I hate pop-ups as well.
especially misleading popups like the once that look like facebook. If a site has that, then I instantly stop trusting them.
There are pop ups that are not that annoying and that work. Like what mr. Chengdong uses on thebadblogger. If you scroll down the page, you see a call to action. Check it out, it’s very neat.
The worst are blogs with a black background. I can only look at these sites for a few seconds before my eyes go all crazy. Also, it is so important to have an about page. I like to actually know who is writing the blog and what it is about.
If you’re not using your social media badges on your blog then you’re certainly ignoring your audience power, If your reders likes your article then there are quiet a good chance that they would like to share it on social media sites with their friends and hence there are chances to get more targeted traffic on your blog.
Thanks for the great information, Obaidul! Having recently started my own blog, I think I got pretty lucky as I missed most of these points, except for maybe the excessive ads. Not sure on that one, though, as I too am not sure what exactly “excessive” is. All the adds on my blog basically boil down to lead generation ads. I may make a small affiliate commission on a purchase, but the bigger ticket item is the lead generated from the ad.
The other thing I haven’t done yet, but have thought about, is the pop-up opt-in. I also think they’re annoying as heck, especially if you’re just passing a few minutes and reading a blog post from your phone or tablet. But, everybody also raves about their effectiveness, which is also quite important. I can see it being a touchy area, and will probably have to test it out both ways as my readership continues to grow.
Thanks again for the great information. It’s very useful to those of us with less experience in the blog world!!
~Barry
Hey, Barry. The amount (read blocks) of advertising that you can use on your blog actually depends on the type of advertising and its location in relation to the content. If your blog is new, you should have some patience with displaying ads. If ads become the focus of your blog, it’s too much.
In any case, you need to strike the right balance. After all, readers come to your blog because they are interested in the content (and not the ads).
Thanks for your comment!
Two mistakes that I made as a newbie blogger which I hope no one makes in these times.
1. I set out blogging without knowing much of how the blogosphere works and the niceties and protocols involved. I ended up quoting other sources, news, reviews, etc., extensively, sometimes to the exclusion of any content from me. I thought a link somewhere in the text was sufficient as a trackback. I did the same thing with images.
2. I peppered my posts with links, often tangentially, as a kinky way of sharing my worldview. I realized soon that the average reader was not interested in your whacky mindmap in the form of disjointed links in the post. Also, I let the links open in the same window/tab, thereby having a lot of exits early in the post.
Very useful collection, Obaidul.
Thanks for sharing your personal experience, Subhorup! Everyone of us makes mistakes. What’s really important is to learn from those mistakes and not repeat them in the long run.
You wrote exactly all the things that can really irritate every visitor, and me personally. I wonder don’t some blog owners understand that they are not doing the right things? It seems to be so obviously!
I must agree with your 3rd point which is about colors,, and I really hate that when i visit a blog with a lot of light colors, and what i do is quickly close that blog 🙂
Thanks for this post 😀
Obaidul,
Nice one. However, one more important point you could have added is “non sticky content”. If the blogs don’t have good content be it video or plain written tips to keep me engage in it…the blog is waste of internet realestate 🙂
You are a Webmaster in this Topic . Great Post ! Thanks for Sharing !
Let’s not forget music. Yes, people do that on purpose! So, not cool! But the items you gave are so on point. Thanks!
Yes, you’re right Marcie! Music being played in the background is really very irritating. Another minus point of using music on a blog is that it increases the download time of pages.
Thanks for commenting!
yes sir really this points are common mistakes on blogs.i also doing some of them.i will solve it soon.nice share 🙂
i have to admit, one of the things i don’t like is when you get emails from feedburner subscriptions that do not have the post title in the subject line. if a post is good,i like to save the email i get in a folder so i can refer back to it later and only having the blog’s name in the subject line makes it difficult to search for it later. i know many people subscribe via RSS reader so this doesn’t bother them, but for those of us that prefer email, something ot think about…
Hi,
I really hate the pop-up forms. I delete them right away, but I hate that they hit me in the face when I go to a blog. Makes me want to just leave the site!
Love the article. Sally
I am J. B. just turned 70 in August and have about one year behind me on the internet. I truly believed it was a waste of time at my age but I was wrong it is something I really enjoy now, at first I was scared to even send an email afraid of the unknown. As I grow in understanding an run across information like Obaidul Haque delivers make the learning experience so much easier to understand. ( No Techie Talk) So many instructors can never bring the information down to the beginners level I guess they have forgotten when they were beginners. I had never paid any attention to this, before but after reading Obaiduls article I am going to make a point of learning more about it.
Thanks Obaidul
Regards.
J. B
Excessive experimentation also contributes in making a blog look unprofessional. Rest all points mentioned by you are well taken 🙂
That’s a good point!
I can’t stand a blog with loud colors and thousands of badges and banner ads on their side bar. Sometimes I think people have the best intentions with badges to help promote their friends and such, but adding another separate page would actually help avoid the complicated look of appearing too busy! Great post!
My number one pet peeve are auto-starters. Can’t stand the suckers. Especially if I am listening to something while I surf the net or I am busy multitasking when I click on your site. If I want to listen or view your video, I will press play. Trust me on that one.
Another way to get me to avoid your site like it has the plague is to have popups every time I visit your site. I wouldn’t mind a reminder every 30 days or 30 visits or what have you. Is there a plugin that can control that?
The biggest mistake: USING A FREE BLOG HOSTING like blogspot.com or wordpress.com. If you have any plans with that blog, buy a domain name, get a small hosting account and start from there 😉
Definitely. If you want to have more control over your blog (and earn some extra cash from it too), it’s always advisable not to use a free blog hosting service.
Thanks for your comment, Dojo!
Also important, especially for the visually compromised is a readable font. It’s a little complicated, but Rob Cubbon’s site has directions. I was using the twenty ten theme, and changed my font. Looks better. Now to work on the writing. 🙂
That and sites that are constantly down :/.
Every blogger should make it compulsory to follow these points. As a reader it is really annoying when you get to see pop-ups and also no share buttons.
Thanks for stressing the points. Glad that you liked the tips!
Sticking to a clean and simple layout with a readable font size can really help any blog for me. I find that too many froo-froos on the blog rather distracting. A clean and simple layout will help your blog post stand out and make it more reader-friendly. 🙂
Occasionally I will see a wordpress blog where the tagline still says “Just another wordpress blog” and yet it is a business blog. Sometimes it is hard to do all the little key steps in setting up a blog right – and I always wonder which steps I forgot to do. I use a spreadsheet now to make sure I check all the blocks!
But – even with that – sometimes I still forget.
As far as #1 goes, there are a few (very few) sites that I somewhat reluctantly still visit regularly that are overrun with annoying ads and pop-ups; I find the content valuable enough to deal with the pop-ups and intrusive advertising techniques (don’t you just love when some movie trailer audio starts blasting out of nowhere, from your computer speakers?). But its unfortunate and I hope the internet develops away from that sort of possibility for intrusion by unwanted advertising.
Not looking into comments and answering them? Unaware of spam comments?
That’s right, Ling. In fact, this is one of the most common mistakes that we can notice on blogs. Responding to comments is an excellent way of making your readers feel important.
Thanks for your comment!
I would like to say that as a blogger I don’t like to visit blogs, which are not designed properly. Also, I don’t like to visit blogs, which are not updated with new information for a long time. So, I think that there are two important things, which each blogger has to know. These are a professional design of a blog and interesting and informative content. Good design of a blog demonstrates serious attitude towards business. Interesting content is what attracts users to a blog.
Both the points are taken. A great design attracts the attention of the visitor while interesting content engages them.
Thanks for sharing the two most important fundamentals of blogging!
I will use your tips with my blog. What can I do if i dont have mony for buying domain and I dont want adertisings on my blog. Do you know any blog with that stuff?
I too hate pop ups and colors that hurt my eyes.. I immediately close such sites.. LOL
Thanks for sharing this, very informative!
Popups are bad and nearly useless with today’s audience, I think a lot of websites need to improve their video & image creations and integration. Videos can go viral so quick today, its worth making high definition, quality productions to attract more visitors and potential clients.
Plus videos and crisp imagery look great on your website, especially when the template integrates them well.
Those are great tips! Thank you for sharing them. I agree with number seven, Annoying Readers with Pop-ups. Your readers or followers visit your site because they like the content. If pop-ups frequently appear, they’d get annoyed and decide to leave your site and never visit again.
I completely understand where this post is coming from in terms of simplifying a blog or website minus the intrusion of excessive advertisements. When I first launched my blog a couple of years ago, I had no clue that excessive advertisements turn people off. Recently, I did an advertisement overhaul on my main site, so that ads wouldn’t be so intrusive on readers, while focusing more on unique content and providing down to earth humble insight, while passing along meaningful information in empowering others. Thank you for bringing up this topic 🙂
Excellent tips. I am happy that I came through your site while I was googling for something else. 🙂 Read the whole post. Tip #7 is the one I felt most right. Because readers won’t like sites which throws pop ups when we are looking for something badly.
Great informative tips Obaidul. As a new blogger, these are very most valuable tips for me and i hope, interaction with readers are must. While searching, i have seen some blogs that doesn’t have any comment section to clarify my doubts. So i think its also an important thing to have in a blog. Thanks for the tips bro.:)
love what you guys are doing over here with this blog. Keep up the good work 🙂
very useful.Since I am a newbie and working on my blog these tips will help me a lot on improving my blog.
Hey Obaidul,
I find this article being so important since it gives out most of the mistakes that had been on blogging and I am so eager check if I have those mistakes on my blogging strategies. Thanks for reminding us. 😀
Only one sentence sums up everything that this post is trying to say: “Don’t use anything which interrupts the flow of reading.” Whether ads, confusing layout, poor navigational structure, too much Javascript-driven widgets, graphics overload, color overload–anything that doesn’t make the real content King is a grave, unpardonable mistake punishable by beheading. 😉
ouch… Talk about “blogger punishment”, for not following protocol on content structure… LOL
🙂
Drewry, I was exaggerating, of course. But, there’s some grain of truth to it despite the exaggeration. Content and layout that are disorganized are hard to digest. As an author, I don’t want my readers to have indigestion. 😀
I hear ya tawlkin’ , playa…
LOL 🙂
Posting blogs on blog commenting is my first experience, I have gone through many blog commenting tips, that helps me to learn basic things. But i find difficult where to implement my blog comment and how to commenting it. Hope i can get quick Commenting Tips.
Here are my basic query.
1. how to leave comments?
2. Which comments get clicked the most?
3. what is dofollow/nofollow blog?
Hello Vidhya. Here are the answers to your queries.
1. Leave comments only to add value to the conversation. Don’t comment just for the sake of leaving links to your website or blog (this is spam).
2. Only quality and timely comments have a higher click-through rate. Also don’t comment anonymously.
3. The rel=”nofollow” attribute tells the spider not to crawl a link.
Hope that helps. Thanks for your comment!
Thank you Mr Haque, I will follow your tips this will be helpful to improve for my blog post.
I am trying to find the way where to implement my blog comment and how to commenting it.
just recently, I had to overhaul the ad layout for my site. And, while I hope the overhauling of the ads on the site are not intrusive to people, I hope to continue learning more from Basic Blog Tips, as well as others, one how to become better in online marketing efforts. Thank you so much, for creating this wonderful blog post and giving food for thought 🙂
i started blogging after I graduated college and it was a defining moment of my writing career life. lol it’s not as if I really write well but i do love sharing my thoughts and opinions about certain things that interest me. so these tips are so valuable and thank you for sharing. Please visit my blog Floor Sanding Edinburgh
Hi Obaidul,
I never knew that using social media share button will make a blog look unprofessional, after reading this article, I just put some of it’s most often used by readers to share.
To be honest i don’t read blog comment policy. I think it’s only intended for spammers out there. I just want to stress out that buying for blog comments will only hurt your site. Most of them commented on blog that are link farms and it will put your site in Google Sandbox. Believe me, i’ve been there. There are SEO company out there that are reliable but most of them are fraud and not to mention that they will cost you a fortune.
It turns out the problem as small as it could damage the image of our blog, I will first settled myself now …
You have mentioned all the things that makes a blog really unprofessional. Though most bloggers generate money from advertisements but bloggers must also consider whether the advertisement is becoming encumbers the user-experience of their readers.
Quite impressive information. Been thinking to apply it to my blog posts. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Obaidul. Making the above mistakes actually costs bloggers more than just the title ‘unprofessional.’ It actually worsens the blogger’s reputation. I hope not to ever undergo situations where I make the above mistakes. Thank u friend. I will make a copy of this article to always keep these points in mind.
I know that sometimes, using excessive ads or pop-ups looks unprofessional, but I’ve seen blogs that are really successful and they are full of ads, sometimes are slow , and so on. I guess content is still the king of everything, right?