Things to Avoid When Blogging

If you're a new blogger, here are five tips to avoid when blogging.

If you are already a blogger and you have some things to add, please do so!

This looked intimidating, so I chose it.

1.) Avoid poor grammar and spelling.  Although your blog posts certainly don't have to be perfect, it's good to at least do a read-through before you publish for all the world to see.  Blogging is informal and you probably won't be judged if you have a little error or two, but too many mistakes can be a major distraction to your readers.  And be sure to stick to basic capitalization and punctuation rules.

For example, which of these do you prefer?

heyyy yalll, my names emily.. i luuuuv bloggin n I relly want to get to no yall better soooo what do yu like to do for funnnn? i like gtuiar and ukulaylee.xx <3 <33

Hey, y'all! My name is Emily. I love blogging and I can't wait to get to know you better. What do you like to do for fun? I like playing the guitar and ukulele.

Makes a difference, right?  While it's great to write how you talk, you should only do so to a certain extent.

2.) Avoid loud backgrounds.  When you're creating the background for your blog, avoid anything overly crazy.  If your background is too loud or cluttered, people will become distracted from your actual writing.   Using my very favorite background creator, Shabby Blogs, as my example, I would consider something like this to be perfectly fine for your blog and something like this to be a little too loud.

This may just be my personal preference, but I encourage you to keep the background behind your text solid white (something like pale blue or off-white would work too) and your actual font a plain black.  When you choose black, pink, blue, or another color, your readers will have to adjust to the bright color contrasts and it becomes very distracting... and it can end up tiring the eyes faster than the normal and expected background.

We tend to skim over all articles on the internet, whether we admit it or not, which is why it's best to stick with certain fonts and plain backgrounds, to keep things easier to read quickly.  If your blog is difficult to skim over, people often won't take the time to focus harder and read; they'll simply leave.  Notice nearly every popular blog or online news blog has a plain white background.  

So basically, it's perfectly fine (and recommended) to add some color onto the edges of the page, but try to keep anything near your writing plain and simple.

3.) Avoid unusual fonts.  For the same reason as what I was saying above, people like to be able to skim quickly through blogs, not read in-depth.  From years of reading magazines, newspapers, and books, we're used to fonts like Times New Roman and Arial.  Anything like Comic Sans, Papyrus, or a flowery script will be distracting.  I come across way too many blogs with distracting fonts like this:

And yes, I did use the same font as what's in my header.  See, there's plenty of opportunities to use pretty fonts... just not in your main body of text.

4.) Avoid using copyrighted photos.  For obvious reasons, using a photo that isn't your own without the creator's permission is against the law and a bad idea.  However, it's easier than it might seem to accidentally post a copyrighted photo without realizing it, so keep an eye out.  Two or three years ago, I accidentally posted a copyrighted image on my blog and it didn't take long for me to get a phone call at my house from the creator.  Yikes.  Just be extra careful about this one.  Got it?  Good.

5.) Avoid trying too hard.  It's perfectly fine to ask questions so you will receive comments.  It's fine to occasionally ask people to subscribe to your blog or buy some merchandise.  However, don't get caught up in trying to people-please through your blog.  From experience, the moment your blog becomes more of a way to gain viewers and commenters than a way of expressing yourself and sharing your voice, it will become a chore and you'll get burned out quickly.

Look at it this way: if people like what you have to say, then great!  If not, no worries.  You're keeping a blog because that's what you like to do.  Readers are a plus.

Hope this helps.

Remember, if you have a question about blogging, ask in the comments below or in an email, and I will have a blogging Q&A day on May 1.

Two years ago: The Body
One year ago: A Weekend of Aggie Spirit