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SEO Tips
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11 Non User-friendly Mistakes You Should Avoid
July 30, 2008
Stop pissing your readers off. That’s right. Stop it! There are so many blogs out there (without mentioning any names) that do things that make their site extremely non user-friendly. The worst thing you can do is have a great blog, with great content, yet provide a horrible experience for readers.
You might be wondering:
What in the world are you talking about?
If you have a great blog, with great content then what could possibly go wrong?
Well there are several details that people overlook. Important details. Details that can get on the nerves of your readers just enough to have them click the X button at the top, right hand corner of their browser. You must understand everyone is different. Some people may have difficulty reading your articles because the font is too small even though it reads perfectly fine to you.
If you want to attract all sorts of readers, which you should, then you want to make sure your blog is equipped to perform exceptionally for all sorts of people. It’s important to do your research and find out what kind of pet peeves have blog readers developed over the years.
What comes off as annoying? What can make a reader leave your blog as soon as they arrive without even reading a sentence? You want to try and figure out what can make your blog as user-friendly as possible. Below I’ve compiled several mistakes people do, and some that even I did in the past when starting a new blog. All of these are things that you should avoid if you want your site to be user-friendly.
1. Non-scannable text
Something so annoying that it will make your reader not even begin to read a sentence is non-scannable text. You know what I’m talking about: articles with one block of text as if it were all one gargantuan paragraph.
Put some spaces between every few sentences–break it down to 4-5 sentence paragraphs for crying out loud. Not putting spaces or breaking down your article into paragraphs makes for extremely non-scannable text; avoid this by all means necessary! Some good tips to make your text more scannable is to use:
- sub-heads
- bullet points
- make paragraphs shorter
- highlight important keywords
2. Opening links in new window
This is another great way to annoy your readers and have them avoid reading your article altogether. When I say opening links in new windows, I’m referring to adding the “target” attribute to external links placed on your site; so that when someone clicks on a link that leads to another website it opens in a completely new window. Now instead of one open window, the reader now has two open windows, and this can cause the reader to be frustrated. And if they already had other windows open you will just add to their clutter; annoying them even more.
Check out this post on why you shouldn’t open links in new windows, and why you should open them in the same window.
3. Not changing color of visited links
Changing the color of visited links gives the reader a good sense of their past navigation. Knowing what posts they have read and which ones they haven’t sets them up to properly decide which post they’re going to read next. Not changing the color of visited links can cause confusion, and people might find themselves clicking on a post to read only to realize they have already read it.
This can not only waste your readers time but also have them lose their sense of location on your blog; they will feel lost. To avoid this it’s important you make sure the color of visited links on your site is different then its regular color.
4. Not answering your readers questions
Something you must understand is that people are on your site because they need something. They’re looking for some sort of information that can be of some use to them. They aren’t on your site because your swell, peachy, and wonderful–no.
The biggest failure for a website is not providing the information its readers need. Now that you understand that you should know it’s your duty to provide them with what they need; if not then why’d you make the site for? This includes writing the post, oh and yea, almost forgot . . . answering your readers questions as well! You wrote it; if someone has a question answer it. It isn’t very courteous to not respond to someone who actually took the time to read your post, and it’s completely opposite of being user-friendly.
5. Why are your links anchored with “here“?
This is a trend that has been going on for a while, and it seems people think it’s cool to anchor text your links with the word “here”.
e.g., If you’d like to find out more blogging mistakes you should avoid, click here, here and here.
Let me explain what’s wrong with this, and why you shouldn’t do it. To start off when you link to another post or website the anchor text on the link should be descriptive as to what the post the link is taking you to is going to be about. People don’t want to click onto the “unknown”.
Secondly, by your link being anchored with “here” you aren’t passing any SEO juice on. You’re practically throwing away a good, valuable, descriptive link to a post which could have gained some SEO value from the anchor text. Instead you will gain none, because it’s most likely the word “here” has nothing to do with your post whatsoever.
6. Non descriptive headlines
Now this is just a no-no. One of the most important parts of writing your post is writing its title or headline. It is important for the title to be catchy, and grasp the readers attention, but what’s more important is that the title is descriptive to what the post is about. If you can gracefully do both in one title, then that’s great, and you were born to copy-write.
Otherwise, you should avoid using funny, cute titles that really make no sense out of context. If you want to write humorous and catchy titles, instead of descriptive, accurate titles, then you would be writing for social media sites, and not your readers–unless all your readers come from social media sites; in that case it’s all on you.
The reason I say you’d be writing for social media is because articles on those sites get really popular with titles like: “George Bush’s 10 commandments to getting .gov links”.
Even though people have gotten massive traffic from pulling off snappy titles nothing like the bad example I showed above, I’m not a copy-writing genius so I’d rather play it safe, and if you’re not you should probably play it safe too.
Here’s a rule of thumb to go by: Never write misleading headlines/titles. They should always be relevant to the post.
7. No about us page
No “about us” page can make your website or blog lose credibility. Even though a lot of people don’t have an about page that doesn’t mean you should follow. Your readers want to know who’s behind the pen, or keyboard in this case. Writing an about page explaining a little bit of who you are, what you do, and why you do it doesn’t hurt; you actually benefit from it.
Your site will be taken more seriously and your readers will be more loyal, because they know you on a more personal note through your about page. When you show the “why” of what you’re doing, and show the drive and enthusiasm behind it, people tend to like you more, and give you more of a chance. As an example you can check out my about page: About us
8. Jumpy post frequency
Once you establish your readers expectations it’s important to keep up with them. This is a key fundamental to web usability. If you’ve been posting every 2 days since “forever”, and all of sudden it slows down to a post every week or so, you’re not keeping up with reader expectation.
Why? Because by posting every 2 days like clockwork for a long period of time you embedded this post frequency into your readers mind without even knowing it. They’re expecting a new post every 2 days, and by not keeping up with what was indirectly promised to them you will lose loyal readers. Daily posting is considered to be best, but not necessary.
Weekly and monthly posting can work out as well depending on your niche. What’s most important is that you meet your readers expectations. Letting your readers know what the post frequency is on your blog would be a great way to do this.
Rule of thumb to go by: Once you pick your posting schedule, stick to it.
9. .blogspot, .typepad, .wordpress, or any other “.anything” domains
No matter how easy, convenient, and free these services may be if you’re serious about blogging you should have your own .com. When you have your own .com people take you more seriously; it looks more professional. Having a “.anything” makes you look like a beginner. It also means you belong to that service.
They can degrade the service features whenever they want, and they can place pop-ups, banners, and other sorts of advertisements on your site that they want as well. Having your own domain can cost you only $10 per year, and hosting only $6.95 per month. That will secure your blogs future. Besides these “.anything” services are becoming as common as having a Myspace or Facebook profile.
10. Too many different topics
Having too many different topics can deprive you of having a super loyal, laser targeted audience for your website or blog. A person will come to your site and read something that interests them, if their later returns result in several off topic posts in the spotlight it may turn them off. The truth is the majority of people will only read what’s related to their topic of interest; anything else is usually overlooked.
This also means if you cover several topics, several different types of audiences are coming to your site. This will make it difficult to narrow your blog down to a specific niche. It would also make potential advertisers think twice knowing that their ad will be shown to a group with mixed interests, and only a certain percentage of that group is interested in what they’re advertising. So covering too many different topics is something to definitely think over twice.
11. No Tagline
Making sure you have a one sentence tagline is crucial. The purpose of a tagline is so visitors can immediately know what the site they’re on is all about. When you create a tagline for your blog it’s important you make sure it describes what your site is about in simplest terms.
A tagline should consist of one sentence describing what your site does and what it’s about in plainest form. This will let your visitors know if the information they’re looking for falls under the websites topic; making them aware they’re in the right place. A tagline does a lot of good for a website or blog.
Apply all the great tips mentioned above!
Your readers will be happy campers!
Blog usability and being as user-friendly as possible is the way to go. Your readers will thank you subconsciously. Applying these tips to your website or blog if you don’t already have them will increase the usability of your website. In turn you will not annoy your readers; which in turn leads to them becoming loyal readers.
You have to remember, your readers you should mean everything to you. The fact that you write and publish articles means that you want someone to read them. Therefore why not make it easy and comfortable for people to do so?
These things are what the majority of the blogosphere prefers, what the majority of your readers will prefer, and chances are what you prefer–believe it or not it also makes your site more creditable; making your site more valuable if you ever plan on selling it.
I hope these tips helps you all make your websites and blogs more user-friendly! I would love to hear from you all as well. What do you consider to be user-friendly? Know something that’s user friendly but don’t see it up there? Enlighten us in the comment section!
I would strongly disagree with #9. Albeit “.anything” isn’t good (I agree with that part), most of these services offer domain mapping, meaning although you are blogging on one of these platform, you still have your own domain in the browser address bar. And as to ads, well, as far as I know of and have tried out you have full control over that in .blogspot, .typepad and . wordpress. Besides that, this IS a great post!
Excellent tips! These ideas can can be applied immediate to anyone’s blogs and will instantly much the blog significantly better. Everyone should remember these!
@Jan – Thanks! You make a great point and that is true: I haven’t seen advertisements placed on the blogs of the top “.anything” services neither, but I have on lesser known “.anything” services.
There is also the option for domain mapping which allows you to have your own domain, but once time comes to upgrade and get your own host things can be really frustrating.
@Jeff – Thanks! That’s part of what makes all these tips great: they can be applied immediately. I made most of these changes to my site in a matter of hours.
Excellent points! So many webmasters focus on making money from their sites that they forget the very important fact of making their sites easy to use.The easier a site is to navigate the better it is.
@Tom – Yes. A lot of webmasters skip the whole user-friendly process which is a fairly easy one don’t you think? It’s just like you say: “the easier a site is to navigate the better it is.” That is so true. And thank you!
Great posting! I first started blogging last fall. I wish I had seen this post a month before I got started. Oh well, I’ve had a year to practice and learn and the next round (on its own url, not ‘nmwoodworks.com’) WILL implement these points.
On the subject of focus:
When I first started blogging, I knew that I wanted to write about my viewpoints on a wide array of matters … from gardening to religion to the social impact of technology. So, rather than toss everything into the same kitchen sink, I’ve started several blogs and have been learning, in a general sort of way, what I am most willing to write about and what others are most willing to read about. The best of the batch will be imported into the new blog(s) and the rest bulldozed overboard.
I’ve spent most of today working on a longish post for http://nmwoodworks.com/gardening that I am fairly pleased with. Perfect writing it ain’t … but that’s why we revise.
@Bill – Hey, no sweat; we all overlook things we should have done when starting off–including myself. Now you have a year of experience under your belt that should make things that much easier for your future blogs.
I’ve though of blogging about religion, but what I really want to write about is the social impact of technology. Boy oh boy, do I have a lot to say about that. I’m curious as to how you would approach the subject. If you don’t mind, send me an email with your views on the topic; I’d love to hear things from your perspective.
Thanks for the comment and good luck with all your endeavors!