Every day I come into contact with a new blog or blogger. It is wonderful to see new websites and read the content that they hold, however, it is definitely annoying to be bombarded with advertisements and images. That is just a minor outline of things about blogs that annoy me. There are probably a hundred different situations I’ve come across where I’m saying to myself, “are you f-ing serious?” But I compiled a list of just a few things that really urk me.

1. Link love, it makes sense
2. Make your content accessible
3. Wow, thats alot of ads
4. Echos are getting old
5. Admins, stop being lazy
6. I know who I am
7. Stop filling forms out for me
8. Direct linking is stealing
9. Snap f$cking sucks!
10. So many images, dumb.

Be courteous, send some link love!

I believe link-love to be one of the most flattering and beneficial methods of compensating someone for their hard work. Regardless if it is an article they have written or a plugin they developed. Linking back to a blog is a wonderful gift and should definitely be awarded to those you find worthwhile. Personally, I am guilty of being too lazy to link-back to some websites but I am improving my habits.

Reasons to send link love

1. Credit for a photograph or image
2. Inspirational article, website or content
3. Honorable mentions you deem worthy
4. Resource of similar topic or varying information

There are numerous reasons to send link love, above is just a few. If you talk about something already mentioned on another website and you know about it.. send love.

Content is king.. make it accessible!

In a virtual world where content means everything and everything else is just a technicality, I find many websites perplexing. I ask myself, once again, “are you serious?” It seems as though many websites believe special effects and animations of sorts are more important than accessibility. Many blog owners need to be reminded, your content should be reachable, as in easy to approach and read! Don’t hide your content within a layer that is surrounded by AJAX. I don’t want to have to click and view your content in an AJAX window. This is not what ajax was intended for, but thats a totally different subject.

When you present your content, make sure it is accessibile. Visitors should be able to immediately distinguish your content and it should be obtainable across all platforms, not just firefox. I know many users hate internet explorer and love Firefox, but lets not disriminate against the end-users themselves. By making your website only viewable properly in one browser is putting your website in a bad position. Prevent it, spend time making sure your website is cross-browser compatible. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to work!

Can I get some content with these ads

Monetizing a weblog is important to many people. Compensating your pocket book for the fees associated with owning and operating a weblog or website is understandable. But do websites need sixteen advertisements on one page? I’m a big fan of Text-Link-Ads in this arena because they don’t take up too much space, aren’t an eye sore and honestly, work.

Adsense, yahoo, adbrite and other advertising methods are wonderful, when used properly. Just today, I visited two blogs and honestly, told myself, “no more!” I was immediately astonished to find two giant 250×250 adsense blocks in my face and I had to scroll half a fold in the page to reach the content. Annoying? Definitely!

If you’re going to do it, do it well! Used to be publishers would place ads to reach visitors and almost trick them into clicking. I still feel this is the case with many websites and blogs. I am understanding and can relate to the monetization in such a manner. Though I believe blogs should be delivering what their visitors want; content. Once successful at content delivery, the money will follow.

Hey! hey! hey.. h..e..y..

Echo chambers are growing more and more popular in our blogosphere. I beleived, for a moment, that they were on the decline; wrong. It seems blogs are setting up shop and copying other blogs. Doing nothing more than mirroring information and sending links to other blogs. I feel this goes against the accessibility thoughts.. Why would I want to add another website between me and my final destination? I wonder if Google will get smart and assign a higher search engine position to the final website versus the echo site.

I honestly believe 1 out of every 4 blogs on the internet is an echo site. Just my thoughts..

Stop being lazy!

Blog administrators and editors have responsibilities. As an administrator, if you’re unable to balance the maintenance tasks with the operating tasks associated with owning a weblog, get rid of it. Comment spam, forum spam and contact form spam sucks! We all know this. It isn’t new and there isn’t any new ravishing ways to defeat it. Granted someone comes up with a new plugin once in a while, but over time, the black hat spammers figure out a way to defeat it.

You need to put time into moderating comments and spam. Don’t assume that a plugin or third-party system is going to accurately do everything. You as a human are better as deciphering messages than a plugin. Be sure to spend a little time each day checking our logs and spam filters. Make sure they’re working properly. You definitely do not want your software hindering an user from leaving useful comments on your threads.

I know my own information.. seriously

Wow! You are uber elite and can display my user-agent, ip address and os information; I’m so proud. Now turn it off. Displaying this information is pointless. I believe that javascript is dangerous; the end. Track it in your statistics, whatever, just don’t echo it back out to my screen.

Auto-populated forms

When I decide to leave a comment on your weblog, I definitely do not want to have to remove content from the input fields. Use labels, fieldsets and legends properly. What is the deal with putting “e-mail address” into an input box and expect me to spend an additional click and second removing the content. Forms are meant to be populated with information, not have information removed and re-populated. Why load additional javascript and functions into a page that inreases load time when you could use label tag and make life easier for both of us.

Direct linking to files and images

Short and sweet: Developers, designers and persons in general spend their time working on plugins, themes and files. If you’re going to mention someone’s theme, plugin, hack, ETC; do not link directly to the download. Link to the download page, this gives the visitor an oppurtunity to see the developer or persons website as well as gives the developer or person the chance to gain that visitors loyal readership. Everytime you direct-link you are stealing a potential loyal user from that persons website, regardless if you include a second link to his or her site. Two links equals two options, one link equals one option.. sort of, exiting without clicking a link is always an option — you get my point. Just don’t do it.

Oh snap!

I hate this shit, turn it off, make it an option, dont force it down my throat and please, for the love of all things holy, don’t make me turn off my Javascript to view your website and hinder the operation of websites that seriously make it useful.. Snap, I’m done with you — stupid feature.

Images, images, oh look — images!

Images are great and sometimes useful. Just like advertisements, they can be overwelming and increase page load time dramatically. Lets try to limit the amount of photos in a post, or create an option to display the photograph if the visitor wants to see it. Default: how about, less photos?

And I’m spent..

It is hard to please everyone, hopefully I speak for the majority of people with my opinions, but who knows. All I know is there are things that are features with benefits and things that are features but annoying. Keep annoyances low and benefits high. Visitors would much rather appreciate having to click to turn something on they consider useful, than not be able to click to turn something off.

Just something to think about