15 Reasons why your blog sucks
Sep8Written by:
2009/09/08 08:46 AM 
This is probably a difficult post for me to write. Why? Because, like many blogs out there, mine is not perfect, and there is great room for improvement. Many blogs do not succeed because they break fundamental rules of blogging. Here we are going to have a look at some of these rules. Take this as constructive criticism not an attack on your blog. I did, am still doing, and it has made my blog a better blog.
1. More Ads than content.
Your Blog is laden with Ads and Affiliates links.This is a common problem. Too many ads for too many things with no focus. Sure ads are there to make money. But get the traffic first and create the readership. Then the money will come.
2. No original Content
Your blog posts are either copy ‘n paste of posts that are found on the internet or reworded articles of news or blog items that are currently popular. You have heard of the phrase: “Content is king”. But original content is king.
3. No focus
You are not focused on a particular topic or theme. You do not write for a particular niche. Yes some niche markets can be broad, but they still have a theme. You write about celebrities, then pets, then technology, then space, then about your personal feelings. Do I need to go on.
4. No Authority
Akin to the pervious point. You have no authority. People won’t or don’t believe or trust you. Even though you’ve been blogging for a long time, you are a jack of all trades and master of none. You do not have any authority over any particular subject or niche. Your posts do not reflect any expertise.
5. Your last post was written 3 weeks ago.
Yes, this is a biggie. If you want people to come back frequently, then you need to post frequently. The web is all about freshness. All your posts are stale and old. Nothing new to report. So why should anybody come back. They’ve seen it all before.
6. You have no passion for your blog.
Blogging is just an experiment to you. You don’t really care about your blog or it’s readers. We can tell this by the content and the writing style. If you do not have a passion for blogging and for your niche market, why should I bother reading your blog.
7. You do not promote your blog
People think that if you put it up their they will come. This is not true. How do I know your blog is out there if you do not tell me. Use blog directories, social media like Twitter, Gatorpeeps, Friendfeed, Facebook. Make sure you have an RSS feed of your blog. Use other blog promotion sites like Pimpthisblog, SheToldMe, ShoutDotNet (.NET), or similar.
8. Your blog only has one reader everyday: yourself.
Perhaps two, your mother might read your blog as well. What mother wouldn’t? I fear this one myself. But this is probably as a direct result of not promoting. You won’t gain thousands of readers overnight. But patience and persistence will pay off.
9. Your colour scheme hurts the eyes.
Nobody likes bright green on a bright blue background. Even though you like shocking pink, no one else does. Your blog must be easy on the eyes, a pleasure to behold, or else I will leave.
10. Bad design
Your blog is badly designed. Your navigation sucks, your font is too small to read. You colour scheme hurts my eyes. You are using too many widgets, ads, blog bling to jazz up your site. No focus to the actual post.
11. No relevant content.
The content on your blog is of no use to me. It is not relevant to your chosen niche market. Its just words put together in a hap hash way to make content. It is disjointed, badly structured. Your blog is too cluttered, nothing fits together.
12. Ignoring grammar and spelling.
You may not have the skills of Grammar Girl or passed English literature with flying colours, but pay attention to grammar and spelling. I am somewhat dyslexic, that's why I try to use every tool and opportunity to help my situation. Some semblance of professional writing furthers your blogging career. Get someone else to proof read before posting.
13. Not enough variety.
Readers like variety of content. Learn about the different types of posts that you can write while you’re still learning a niche. Don’t use the same style. Don’t write about the same topics. You can still stagger your topical writing within your niche.
14. Not linking out.
You are shy with your link love. Link out, give lots of link love, and be relevant with your anchor text and to wherever you’re linking. Linking out shows authority and maturity. It’s not all bout you, you know!
15. Irrelevant links.
Linking to irrelevant sites from your blogroll / navigation or articles in general is a bad idea. And not just because Google said so. Relevant links improve the reading experience.
Study your blog. See where you can improve. Come up with some ideas. Then don’t be shy to share them. If you have isolated a good point of improvement, share them with us so that all can benefit from your great ideas. Share them in the comments below.
Related reading:
5 Great tips to improve your website and blog.
10 Easy Tips to Fix a Bad Site.
Top 10 web design mistakes.
Is your skin horrible to look at or a pleasure to behold?
Improve your site Improve your business
The 3 most important things for a Successful Blog – or you’ll fail
A successful blog takes hard work
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blog comments powered by 8 comment(s) so far...
Re: 15 Reasons why your blog sucks
Heck, I'm probably guilty of more than half of these! :(
Does that mean my blog half-sucks? :)
Seriously though, I again applaud you for having the blogger wisdom to make this post in the first place. It highlights a number of issues that I and my 3-month old blog suffer from.
It's a huge learning curve for many, I think.
And it's that required level of humility ("it's not all about me") that we could all benefit from. I think a little more time to find my way and then to start to focus the blog more seriosuly, and we'll be making progress.
Thanks again for a very worthwhile post Robert.
By Greg on
2009/09/08 12:05 PM
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Re: 15 Reasons why your blog sucks
P.S. > Still having issues when trying to post comments via Firefox?
By Greg on
2009/09/08 12:06 PM
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Re: 15 Reasons why your blog sucks
Greg,I also had FF issues, not only with this site, but with many sites that make use of captcha. I believe it was FF3.0/3.5. I upgraded to 3.5.2 and seemed to fix that up for me.
By Robert Bravery on
2009/09/08 12:41 PM
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Re: 15 Reasons why your blog sucks
@greg,
You blog doesn't half suck. Liek mine, we could all do with improvements. The biggest thing is realising that and having the courage to make the needed changes
By Robert Bravery on
2009/09/08 12:40 PM
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Re: 15 Reasons why your blog sucks
Guilty of several there, but 5 and 7 hit a little too close to home. Nice list.
By Tschet on
2009/09/08 01:35 PM
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Re: 15 Reasons why your blog sucks
The toughest is to provide original content. There are thousands and even tens of thousands blogs per niche. How do we keep writing completely original material? I find that the hardest.
By Gordie Rogers on
2009/09/08 03:35 PM
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Re: 15 Reasons why your blog sucks
Interesting. I think number six is a big issue for many new bloggers. I hear them say things like "I'm just trying it for a few months to see if I like it and get any readers". They're almost guaranteed to fail because you can sense that in every word they write.
By Mike CJ on
2009/09/08 04:23 PM
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Re: 15 Reasons why your blog sucks
I couldnt agree more and this is preceisly why my blog sucks a bit at the moment, for now its more of a personal outlet that i share with my friends on twitter, when I ever get my sorry backside into getting my focused IT blog going i can put the above into action along with some of the good advice that mikecj has blogged about on his site. My biggest problem is number 5 due to time constraints but when i have my more focused outlook i should be able to plan and list ideas to blog about and then when i have 30 mins i can write up and schedule the post.
Good read, thanks ;)
By Ben GIllam on
2009/09/08 05:47 PM
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