If I Critiqued Your Blog.....

A lot of people are desperate to get their book or short story critiqued--- so desperate, that I've seen a few contests on blogs where the prize is a critique. But no one seems to want critiques on their blog.

I don't think of myself as a 'critiquer' or critic, and am certainly no blogging expert, but I often see blogs I wish I could critique, just to give the blog owner a chance to improve their blog a bit and get better results.

If I critiqued YOUR blog, what might I say? In particular, what things might I mention that you could easily improve? Here are some common things that I often see that could use improvement:

1. Overly-cluttered blog sidebar. I have this tendency myself. And you don't want your blog sidebar to be too pristine, anyway. But I'd recommend a declutter from time to time--- delete sidebar items that no longer serve a purpose, such as blog hop graphics from a two-year-old blog event. Other items should be pushed to the bottom of the sidebar so that the important things are easy to find.

2. No 'Follow' widget. No, I'm not talking about those 'follow by email' widgets--- I've never wanted to clog my inbox by following a blog that way and most other folks likely feel the same. I'm talking about the Follow on Blogger widget--- every Blogger blog should have one--- and the NetworkedBlogs and Linky follow widgets. Every chance visitor to your blog should get the opportunity to easily become a follower of your blog. And YOU should follow these blogs back, if at all possible. 

3. No Blogrolls. A blogroll is the blogger's chance to follow the Golden Rule laid out by Jesus Christ and 'do unto others as you would have others do unto you'. You'd love to have your own blog on dozens of other bloggers' blogrolls, right?  Then 'do unto others' by including their blog in blogrolls on your own blog. Some bloggers with a blogroll are a bit stingy, having maybe four or five blogs featured. But one of the most successful blogs I've known had massive blogrolls with a wide variety of blogs---- probably including every blogger who'd ever linked to one of his posts and every blog commenter.

4. Too many rants/shocking posts. A little controversy can get a blogger some attention. But when your blog goes ranty--- every post a diatribe spewing anger at something or some one who has offended you--- you may get more blog readers but you detract from your persona as a real writer and rational person. No one wants to read a whole book written by an angry crackpot. So don't blog like one. (Of course, a blog that is all bland/non-controversial/dull is a losing strategy, too.)

5. Too unfocused a blog. If you are a science fiction writer, for example, on-topic posts for you would include posts about science fiction and science topics, news about your own books, and reviews of the books of others in your field. You may have some other topics you regularly post about, like politics, or faith if you are a person of faith, or your family or your cat. But if your last few posts were one about the Green Bay Packers latest game, and one about the Etruscans, and one about dryer lint, and a cookie recipe, and an account of going to the nail salon, your blog may be too unfocused. Readers will wonder 'what is this blog ABOUT?' and not be able to find any answers. Perhaps the rule should be that every 'off-topic' blog post should be followed by an 'on-topic' one.

6. Too focused a blog. If you decide your blog is JUST about 'my book and my writing career', that's a problem, too. It may be difficult to distinguish between YOUR blog about your book/career and a dozen other (mostly self-pubbed) authors blogs about their books/careers. Remember, the one thing that you have that no other writer in the world has is your YOU. Showing your individuality off is important. And if you are a modest person, making your blog just about your book may make you hesitant to post very often because you don't want to 'toot your own horn'.

7. No faith/worldview indicator. Whether you are a gay progressive atheist or a devout conservative Catholic with same-sex attraction, you will be more attractive as a blogger and writer to people who share some of your views. Yet I've visited many blogs by authors who are Christians of one sort or another who have not one item in their sidebar or their 'about me' section that gives a hint of their faith. I'm sure many potential readers will pass them up thinking them secular authors who don't share their values. By the same token, back in the days when I was a political progressive/Marxist and a Neopagan, I would have been attracted to author-blogs by authors who shared my then-values--- if the authors had made them known. Often all it takes is a graphic/symbol, such as a picture of Jesus, cross or crucifix for Christians, to let readers know where you stand without doing a rant on the subject.

8. No About-Me page. OK, I don't have one of those yet, but I do have a 'Statement of Faith' page that tells a little of my personal story. Your blog readers will be curious about you as a person. While you should feel free to keep private things to yourself, it's great to put out some sort of an author bio to let your readers know who you are. An author picture is helpful here, too.

9. Ads, pop-up ads and commercial posts dominate. Don't turn your author blog into the Home Shopping Network! Until your blog is well-established and you get loads of blog traffic daily, blog ads won't earn you any money, anyway. They will just alienate readers. Some bloggers love to review free items of any sort they got in exchange for writing a review. But their blogs look like one long advertisement, and they don't attract many readers. The secret to a good blog is this: don't be a seller, be a giver. Give away good and interesting information in your blog posts and readers will come to your blog to get it.

10. Not enough posts. You must try to blog regularly. You are allowed to take vacations and even just days off when you don't feel like blogging. But a blog that has one post per month or less gets very little traffic, even if the posts are excellent. Set up a schedule and make your blog a habit.

11. Misspellings and grammar atrocities. It's fine to use informal language, even informal language that breaks some old-fashioned grammar rules, in a blog post. But when you post something that's full of errors or incomprehensible sentences, you are telling your blog readers that you just can't write very well. Which is fatal in an author blog.

12. Hard to use comments. The comment thing that comes with Blogger is JUST FINE. Some of the alternatives I've seen on other blogs make it impossible for me to make a comment that links back to my own blog--- Disqus, for one. Also, about the word verification step--- lose it. Many people can't read the word verification words they have these days. So they will refrain from commenting on your blog. I dropped the word verification step a couple years ago. What I do is have comment moderation on older posts--- after three days or a week, I can't remember the exact setting. Once in a very great while I get a spam comment caught in the moderation. Spam comments are what the word verification step is supposed to prevent. So it's not at all a problem to leave that step out to make commenting easier.

How does your blog measure up? If you see a lot of problems after reading this post, don't be discouraged. They are ALL things you can fix. You may not be able to become the world's best/most popular blogger, but you can do little things to improve your blog here and there, and in time it will pay off in more blog readers.

My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt