Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Is Your Blog Reader-friendly?

Some of you might remember this post from last month. Since then, I have visited more blogs and changed my template, I would like to talk about this topic again.
Template
It's the first impression for the visitors; therefore, it is critical to have a nice & simple template which matches the theme of your blog. The main colors should be selected very carefully as well.
Word Verification
Not many people like this because it wastes the readers' time. But it is personal preference. And it can be used to avoid annoying comments.
Sidebar
A well-organized sitebar will definitely attract the readers' attention.
Interactivity
The Auto-linky and Chat-box are good examples to entertain and interact with the readers.
Post
Ideal posts are: not too long; don’t have distracting spelling or grammar errors; and have an easy commenting interface. In addition, don’t display more than ten posts on your homepage because the readers have to spend more time loading your blog.
Content is King
Without interesting content, it is hard to maintain regular readership. The question is how to make your posts interesting enough to attract your readers. I always find I am lack of inspiration :-(

In summary, your blog is just like any other service or product in the market place. If you want to promote you blog and establish reader-loyalty, you have to please your readers (your customers) by making their reading easier, saving their time and providing more value-added information.

BTW, I don't mean that my Sunflower is reader-friendly enough. I am still learning and experimenting......

What are your criteria for a reader-friendly blog?

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Sunflower,

Very good post. I don't know what options you have on Blogger, but on Wordpress there's numerous anti-spam plugins that kill it without the need for Turing protection.

Some of the number sets are better than others:do you get to choose them? I have given up posting comments on some blogs after 3 or 4 attempts to decipher it.

Unknown said...

Hi Sunflower. My criteria are posts that aren't too long, few distracting misspellings, easy commenting (i.e. you don't need to go through five different page loads to leave a comment)

admin said...

Hi Sunflower,

Did you mean "Sidebar"??
For what it's worth, I find it VERY hard to read the comments here because of the light gray font. Like the picture of the "I will exercise for comments" - clever! :-)

Thanks,

-Bob

. said...

Hi Sunflower,
"Exercise for a comment" is a great idea. I too intend to take it up, more so, because, I just cannot get up from the Computer and walk every now and then, despite having a spinal chord injury.
Best regards,
Srini