5 MORE Deadly Sins of Blogging

Neil wrote a very nice piece called The 5 deadly sins of blogging – I thought I’d add a few more of my own to the list. Here’s 5 of the deadlist sins I’ve made and witnessed.

5. Stealing other people’s ideas (without links)
Yes – I appreciate the irony here – but the blogosphere is about conversation. Neil had a great post, and I had a little inspiration to respond. The moral of the story is add some value, and DEFINITELY add a link (hopefully with some prime anchor text – did I mention that Neil offers web strategy consulting?)

4. Not having an about page
I wanna see what you are about. If you vehemently support Bill O’Reilly – it’s going to be pretty hard for me to take you serious. Posts can show intelligence, but the about page will show your personality (that I can identify with). The first thing you should do on any blog is change a default design (add some images, change the header, or at minimum snag a template ) – then add your about page. If you’re not afraid of stalkers – pictures are nice.

3. Not having a subscribe button
Grrr…if you haven’t figured this one out, and I can’t subscribe in under 5 seconds with bloglines – please go back to your geocities site – or set it up in just a few minutes with feedburner.

2. Not having a best posts page
The bests post page theory is very similar in the not having an about page. A best posts page tells what the blog is ABOUT when you’re not writing about your cat and your travels.

1. Being a Wanker
Don’t become an egomaniac blogger just because 200 people in the world read your site. You’re still very lucky that they do, and if you act like a douchebag to people, always assume to be correct, or just plain talk out of your butt about topics you know nothing about – you can bet that your blog will become a worthless drain of time. Write what you know, and do extensive research on what you don’t (and publish it). It’s okay to make mistakes as long as you can own up to them when you do.

*Bonus sin –
Having broken comments or a slow loading site – and again, I appreciate the irony here. I’m hoping to have a redesign complete in the very near future after some database cleanup.

Todd Malicoat

More information about Todd Malicoat aka stuntdubl.