Year End Thoughts on Blogging
And, given the propensity for other bloggers to ask me for links, I’ll give you the top reasons why I don’t read your blog:
All linky, no thinky. Would it kill you to actually, you know, write something? If you’re just parroting, set up a link farm.
You tilt at windmills for a party line. Both parties are wrong. A lot. You should even call your own party on that.
No feed. Seriously. I have some older blogs I read that don’t have feeds. I read them now because I read them before I discovered Bloglines. If you’re a new blog and don’t have a feed, I probably won’t add you to my read list. Now that I think about it, with the exception of commenting, I don’t even visit my own blog that much. It’s true. I use gmail to read comments and bloglines to proofread it. I only visit my own site to keep up with some links and to address comments. All that said, my first visit to your blog won’t be through a feed but to your site.
You don’t update enough. Now, if you’re particularly insightful but update infrequently (like this guy), you’ll keep my interest. Otherwise, I’ll move on.
Because every time you post something new, you email me to tell me that. I don’t mind getting emails about things that are important or breaking or whatever. But don’t send me an email every time you write something.
Stiff competition, folks. There are already many blogs out there and they’re better than yours. Heck, they’re better than mine. If you’re just parroting what others are saying, I’ll just go to the others. For example, I read Michelle Malkin so that I know what Republican blogs are talking about. Her site keeps me up to date with about 90% of what every other Republican blog is talking about. If you’re not adding anything, why would I read you and not her?
Your format sucks. I’m one of those folks who likes convenience and I like easy to read blogs. I don’t want to wait 10 seconds while all your scripts load. I like dark text on light background. I don’t like flaming red fonts or lots of graphics.
If your blog is merely a place for you to post the latest quizilla results or whatever the meme of the day is, yawn. Sure, I like you and all but I don’t care that much about you.
Now, if you want me to read, it’s easy. Two words: Gun porn.
December 31st, 2005 at 12:23 pm
Say Uncle has a list of helpful hints on how to get linked to and read by him:
Now, if you want me to read, it’s easy. Two words: Gun porn.
We’re already on Uncle’s blogroll, but hey, what’s wrong with some harmless link-whoring? Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever posted gun p0rn here. So what Uncle wants, Uncle gets.
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December 31st, 2005 at 12:54 pm
[…] I asked for it and Captain Holly delivered. […]
January 1st, 2006 at 1:37 am
I’m glad that you put “fresh and original content” above “update your damn blog”. I have a RRS feed reader, I’d much rather read one good blog post a month, than a mundane update every day.
My blog reading time is a finite resourse (well that’s my resolution, at least).
January 1st, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Actually… with the subject of feeds… I wonder. While I am not too familiar with them, is it like having someone’s blog posts emailed to you at the end of each day?
If so then it wouldn’t be hard to write a customized mailing list script for blogs. You know how everyone categorizes blog posts? You could even have it to where people could sign up for your blog mailing list, and even select the categories that they want to receive posts regarding, that way they could even customize what posts they have sent to them. Now THAT would be cool… easy to do too, just take a little bit of programming. Oh well, just a thought. Heck, I already have a mailing list script, it’d just take a modification of that.
Now that is something it’d be nice if some bloggers would implement.
January 1st, 2006 at 7:57 pm
Feeds work a bit different. Here’s the feeds I read:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/SayUncle