I am sure, folks, that by know you have probably read, or been exposed to, this particular article from Jakob Nielsen : Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes. What a fantastic read in order to improve your weblogging experience and make the best out of it ! What a good bunch of tips you can read over and over again and learn a trick or two on how you can get things going with your weblog!
Yes, indeed, if you remember, in the last couple of days I have been talking about How to Drive Weblog Traffic and 16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog, however, if there isn’t any content, or if it is not good enough, it is not going to attract many people either, is it? At least, the folks that will stick around for a while, and those are the ones that we should be aiming for, right? So that is the main reason why I thought I would create a weblog post referencing Jakob’s article where you can find some really good tips on how to make your weblog content ever so much more professional and appealing to read and, while in the process, to attract more readers to your weblog posts. If that is what you would want to do.
For those folks who may want to have a look into the article but want to have an excerpt in advance here you have got the listing of those Top Ten Design Mistakes. And next to them you will find as well some commentary about how far my weblog elsua has been able to meet some of those tricks. Thus without any further delay here we go:
“No Author Biographies: Well, I do have one of those biographies. Have a look into the About section. No Author Photo: I am actually sharing a recent picture of mine in two different places. The About section and in my Technorati profile. Nondescript Posting Titles: This one has always been a tricky one and something that I am sure that you get to master in its due time and after having shared several hundred weblog posts. Thus work in progress on this tip. Links Don’t Say Where They Go: I am not sure about you folks but I have always tried to put lots of care whenever I post, or cross-reference, links, specially if I would want people to stop and read about them; so when I read about this one in Jakob’s article I just couldn’t help nodding. Again, another work in progress, but I am hoping that things will improve as I get to create more weblog posts and continue with the good advice of linking in a proper way and not just linking for the sake of linking. Classic Hits are Buried: This is one of those tips where after you read it you go something like “Goodness! Why didn’t I think about that before ? What a great tip!” So stay tuned because very shortly you will see a good selection of those weblog posts that would be considered ‘popular’ weblog posts here in my own weblog and based on the different weblog posts I have shared so far. The Calendar is the Only Navigation: This is probably why I try to keep my category usage to a minimum and why indeed there is a calendar in my weblog to help people navigate through the different posts at different dates. Irregular Publishing Frequency: As you well know by now I tend to post on a more or less regular basis, at least once or twice a day, in order to keep up with the momentum from my weblog so that readers have always got something to read, but like Jakob said there may be times where “you shouldn’t post when you have nothing to say” and that should be fine, too ! Mixing Topics: Indeed, I know it is not a good thing mixing topics, which is why you will not see that over here. As I mentioned already in the About section, there are a number of subjects areas around the world of Knowledge Management that I will be weblogging about and everything else will probably not be discussed over here. I am sure there would be plenty of other places where you could read about each of those topics and Technorati may be a good place to get you started. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss: This is one of those tips that makes people think about how far you can go with your own thoughts whenever you embark yourself in weblogging to a large audience and to all those folks who have asked me in the past about it I have always mentioned and advised the same thing over and over again; use some common sense and you should be fine. Pity is that not lots of people do actually do that and then it shows. Have a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service“: Yes ! That is one of the many reasons why elsua is up and running and moving into the next level. And so far it is going just the way I wanted in the first place.
Interesting enough to have a further read, right? Yes, I thought so, too. Thus go and have a look at the entire article on Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes and continue improving the quality of your weblogging. After all, it is not as difficult as what it may seem and the benefits will be tremendous ! At the end of the day, it will depend on you on what you would want to do with your weblogging experience or not. You decide.
Technorati Tags : Weblog+Design, Metablogging
