The 10 mistakes bloggers make

Jakob Nielsen publishes his guide to the ten usability mistakes in weblogs

An interesting matter that’s worth reading. Here they are, summarized and with my comments.

1. Not including the author’s biography.

According to Nielsen this is a matter of trust. You’d like to know the credentials of the author of the blog you’re reading. Totally agree.

2. Not posting the author’s photo.

Well, I’m going to have to retouch some little photo of mine, now where did I leave Photoshop….

3. Titles that aren’t descriptive enough.

This is a classic. People read by quickly scanning the content. Create sections with proper titles that are easy to follow with the eye and make navigation easier.

4. Links that don’t say where they go.

You know, the typical link of the kind: check this out, or click here. It’s better to write something like: Jakob Nielsen writes about this subject in his latest article, 10 weblog mistakes.

5. Burying your classic hits.

There’s always content that people like; it’s good to feature it in your navigation. It’s also good to give context and include links to your other articles on the subject you’re covering.

It’s not the best way to classify. It’s better to highlight by category, or by name, and include some kind of search, but it really isn’t much use to the occasional visitor.

7. Irregular publishing frequency.

It’s good to publish regularly. The problem is that blogging takes time, so you have to give it its priority, but it’s good to keep up the frequency, because your readers expect that.

One fact: remember that after 3 months only 45% of users are still writing.

8. Mixing topics.

I don’t know what’s so bad about talking about other things on your blog, but Nielsen doesn’t like it. He prefers focused blogs. That’s good if you’re going to live off your blog, but if that’s not your case, I don’t see the point. It is good to have a common thread.

9. Forgetting that you write for your future boss.

I like this tip. It’s true, you don’t know who might be reading you.

10. Having a domain controlled by a blog service

Here comes the point I find most important. Register your own domain, and don’t sign up on sites like blogspot, or anything of the sort.

There are 3 reasons to have your own domain and your own hosting 1.- Freedom 2.- Freedom 3.- Freedom

There are a lot of people being censored, such as the journalists at La Cuarta, the Chinese and many others.

All of us who are able to run a host have to help people, by adopting blogs.

Personally, if any of you wants to move your blog to your own domain, I can help with hosting.