Vexatious Blog Habits

There are a number of things about blogs that annoy me. It’s really not that hard to make a presentable blog, at least I don’t think so. I’ve done it twice using the Blogger platform, with no HTML knowledge and only basic computer skills. 

Even if you’re not all that creative, I don’t think any of these points require any degree of creativity. Just some common sense. Which, OK, probably isn’t all that common... 

So here’s a list of the things that vex me most on blogs.

• CAPTCHA. This is my number one vexatious blog habit. Don’t use it. You don’t need it. There are alternatives. I hate being required to enter incomprehensible letters into my computer before being allowed to comment. I know I’ve sometimes typed these wrong but it still accepts them occasionally. Maybe there is a margin of error, I don’t know. I sure know I squint at them and wonder what the hell that letter is. Remember you want people to comment. If it’s all too hard, they just won’t;
• Widgets overhanging sidebars. If you’ve put a widget in your sidebar, make sure it fits. I have two sidebars, one wide and one narrow so when I add widgets I can stick it in whichever sidebar is the closest fit. If I need to make the sidebar wider, I can and I do. It just looks tacky when you put a widget in a sidebar that is too small. It’s kind of like parking an SUV in a small car garage. Only cheaper;
• Lack of sharing buttons. For the love of God, don’t ask me to share your blog (unless you give me something I can RT) if your blog has no sharing buttons. Because I will go there, look for the tweet button, not find one and go ‘stuff this';
• Dark ages comment systems. I recently encountered a comment system where everyone who commented appeared as “guest” with no name. B-A-D. Quite apart from that, it was very difficult to work out how to comment;
• Bad formatting. The use of super-large, badly formatted type (all bold, all italics, or random and unexplainable use of either) appears amateurish, not to mention sloppy. If I see this, I’m unlikely to want to come back to your blog;
• Blog posts split over multiple pages. I know some people like to do this to break up big posts, but can I just say NO. If your post is really that long it concerns you, post it in multiple parts. I do this when I post short stories (usually 2000 – 4000 words) or sometimes posts in my mythical creatures series if I have too many creatures to deal with. Splitting it over multiple pages just means I have to wait for the next page to load. This is just an opportunity for me to give up and go elsewhere;

You want to attract readers and more, once they arrive, you want to keep them, and then if you keep them, you want them to comment and/or tell their friends. All of the above bad habits are disincentives on one or more of these fronts. 

What the hell does this say??

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This is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge Series. If you missed the previous posts, you can find them here - A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P , Q, R, S, T, and U.

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