Top 5 Must-Have Resolutions To Start Your BLOG Right in 2013

If you think that blogs don't need resolutions, think again. Trust me. After visiting a few many blogs today, I reckon a lot of us do! Make that very crucial that they do! We all want our blogs to be reader and visitor-friendly and yet I don't understand why some blog owners makes it miserably hard for us to navigate their blogs. Yes, I'm totally biatching here. You would too if you were in my shoes today.

One of my goals this year was to visit more blog and expand my connections. We all need to. So, I started visiting blogs today and there were few (no, many) cumbersome schtuffs I've observed, encountered, experienced, painfully no less, that blogs in general should resolute to resolve. Visiting blogs is the easy part, but commenting on blogs is another (horror) story.

As you and I know, our readers and visitors are what helps grow our blogs. They're one of the vital reasons we write. If we are the soul of the blog, they are the food that nourishes our blogs. Let's then make each other's lives easier by making it easy on us when we visit each other's blogs.

Here are the Top 5 Must-Have Resolutions to Start your Blog right. And hopefully, make your blog and you happy too!


Resolution #1 - REMOVE CAPTCHAS
Probably the most annoying spam filter ever invented. And more annoying when you are the recipient of gibberish texts that even with four eyes and reading glasses, you still can't read the darn texts!

Sample of a Captcha

Yes, you're filtering spam comments but so is driving away potential commenters! 80% of those blogs I visited today have captchas and 100% of the time, I left without posting my comments.

There are other ways you can filter spam. If you're using blogger, you can use comment moderation. It's added work but less hassle to your commenters. Disquis and Intense debate seem to work well too.


Resolution #2 - DON'T USE UNREADABLE FONTS (no matter how cute you think they are)
A great blog design is not enough to get a new reader to stick if they can't even read your post title. If you can't read it, why bother reading through the post?

Say Whaattt???

I came across a few blogs with fonts so cute I CAN'T READ THE POST TITLE.  I just left and didn't bother reading the post at all. It was almost a waste visiting. It's ironic that what we think is cute is driving away potential readers.


Resolution #3 - ADS BETWEEN POSTS
I don't know about you but it's disturbing and irritating seeing ad banners in between the title and the post body or in between paragraphs. They're simply very distracting. I know most of us intend to make money out of our blogs but c'mon now, a blog peppered with ads is nothing less than unappealing.

Less is more and this is true with ads. If you have to, the sidebars are a great place to organize them.


Resolution #4 - STOP USING FONT COLORS THAT BLENDS AND DISAPPEAR
If there is anything that's highly irritating than a font that you can't read ( See #2), it's one you can't almost see, making it hart to read. Also, add small fonts into the equation then you have a recipe for definite blog fail.

Try this for size. Dark gray-colored text over black background.

Anything there?

Resolution #5 - ATTACH A BANNER OR TEXT IDENTIFYING YOUR BLOG
I did say "less is more" but NOT WHEN YOUR BLOG TITLE OR BANNER IS MISSING. How do you expect visitors to take interest on a blog without a name? A blog void of banner or text displaying your site's name also impacts your blog's credibility.

Why would I take a blog seriously when it's not even serious enough to bother branding it's own blog?

Branding is a crucial ingredient to establishing an identity that will stick in the minds of readers and visitors with short-attentions landing in your site for the first time. 

If you don't see any of these issues in your blog then Kudos to you! But if you do, it's time to act my friend. Make 2013 a better year for your blog by taking little changes to better your blog.

Let's all do each other a favor.