I have been reading lots and lots of blogs over the past three months and I keep coming up with blogs that aren’t very Reader friendly or sometimes even inconsiderate…not that the blogger is doing these things intentionally. I think they just aren’t aware of it.
One thing that would help, and I realize it isn’t possible on all blogging platforms especialy if you have a free blog, is changing the font. I have to increase the view size in my No Squint plugin to about 150% in order to be able to view the font without serious eye strain. I know some blogs have a variable font size where the Reader can pick the font size. I love those blogs but I think it’s probably a feature available only on pay blogs. However, if there is anything you can do to improve the size or the crispness of the font, that would help your Readers.
Another thing that would help is to keep in mind that your Followers probably follow a lot of other blogs. When I follow a blog, I read every single post as soon as I am notified of the post. Each day I spend upwards of three hours reading and commenting on blogs. So, when a blog I follow post five, six, seven, or more times in one day, that’s a bit much, especially when a lot of them are just reports of what the Blogger is doing at the moment or is about to do. Some Bloggers seem to run to publish a post every hour to report on every detail of their lives. Too much. And often too much information, too! Be considerate of your Readers’ time or you may lose those Readers.
And that brings me to commenting. Why would you make your Readers jump through hoops to comment on your post? First I have to enter all of my identifying information, then I have to prove I’m not a robot, then I have to post my comment and then I have to preview it before it publishes and then it will finally publish. It often takes me longer to comment than it does to read the post and by then, I’ve lost interest in commenting. Then there are a couple of blogging platforms that make you join their platform before you can comment. Not going to happen with me.
I often tweet the urls of blogs I enjoy so that others can visit them, too. However, if there is no Share button available or if it is there but not configured, then I have to copy the url, open Twitter, paste the url, type in any hashtags I want to add, type in a comment, then post. Takes too long. I’m not doing it and you are missing out on shares and visits. So get that Share Button up on your blog and get it configured so that all Readers have to do is hit the button and share it!
These are the top things bugging me about reading blogs today. There are others but these made it to the top of the list today. It may not apply to all of you, in fact I know it doesn’t apply to most of my Followers. However, when you have just spent the last three hours reading, commenting, and sharing blogs, these things are really aggravating and they keep me from coming back to your blog!
To those of you who are nice to your Readers by not being guilty of any of these pet peeves, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Oh I am guilty of posting more than once a day… Oops… But I hope the font is okay? And I think the other things are okay too?
LikeLike
But your posts are substantial. I don’t mind reading yours even more than once a day. Some bloggers, it seems, have to post every time they sneeze. One blogger, I counted the posts, had twelve posts in one day. Four were basically updates on the same thing. Why not post all that as one post at the end of the day or the day after? Some of these people are posting at work and it makes me wonder what their boss would say if they knew that!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hahaha… I totally see what you mean.
LikeLike
Very concise helpful information. The two that catch me are the multi posting, although some bloggers I continue to follow as I enjoy our interaction, and the other one is the ‘are you a robot’ and captchas. They drive me mad, and turn me off commenting, but not following may I add.
I too follow a lot of blogs and it is so very difficult to give time and be ‘fair’ to everyone. I can only do my best and try to comment as often as possible.
LikeLike
Some photography blogs are guilty of multi-posting, taking what could easily be a single gallery type post with eight or ten images and instead stretching it into eight or ten individual posts. They do it for the likes, I guess. I stop following when I see this, it just feels like spam in my feed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for this post. Please let me know if I am doing this all wrong! I started to remodel my blog and got side tracked. Still haven’t gotten back to it, or posting! Tell me what I’m guilty of so I can improve…please
LikeLike
Deb, yours is fine. No problem there. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whew haha
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree about having to fill in a form to comment, the minute I see it I close the window.I believe it is Blogger that makes you do that, so my feeling is join WordPress! 😀 I sometimes post more than once a day, but it is usually a photo challenge.Different themes allow different font sizes- I also find it hard to read a small font.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yours are fine, too. I like your photo challenge posts.
LikeLike