While I am by no means an expert on all-things-blog related...I am definitely a bit anal when it comes to how I not only write, but read and follow blogs too. I like a good looking, colorful blog. I like things lined up all pretty and everything looking all neat and clean. I love it when bloggers focus in on photography and are humorous (I literally just spelled that as "humerus" first...I am such a nurse!)
Here are a few tips, as I may so boldly suggest you do to your blog if you have one! :)
- Turn off the Captcha on your comments! Captcha is that annoying word verification after you have to enter after you make a comment. This especially is not necessary if you have "blog owner approval" comment moderation. Please click here for a wonderful tutorial from Libby at ELF: A Family Blog. I have had about 5 anonymous/spam comments, but you can delete them very easily under your Blogger/comments section.
- Make a nice blog love/blog roll page. I have yearned to do this as per my previous anal comment, and the lovely Mama G at Growing Up Geeky did a fabulous tutorial on the same...and you can read that here.
- Don't be a "no reply" blogger! Attach your email address to your Blogger account. Why? Because when I get comments on my blog posts from you, they go directly to my email and I love to reply to your comments right from there, individually...but when your email isn't attached...I can't! So if you want to fix this, here's a great and easy tutorial!
- Please use Rafflecopter for your giveaways. I am new at hosting my giveaways, but as soon as I used Rafflecopter to enter giveaways...I knew if I ever started doing my own that is what I would be using! It is SO easy to not only use as a blogger, but easy to use as a reader/enterer-of-giveaways! Most Rafflecopter users (like me) choose for you to leave just 1 mandatory comment on the blog....vs. multiple like the "old" way of entering. I honestly hardly ever enter giveaways any more if they aren't a Rafflecopter or single comment entry. That might be my loss, but if you want high entry giveways...it's something you might want to consider. :)
- Don't "make" me follow your blog :) To each their own, and I hope I don't step on toes here (and remember, just my preference - you don't have to listen to me!)...but I won't enter a giveaway or use a blog hop if I have to follow a blog. I admit, I certainly used to and it's how I found some of my favorites, but I can tell within a few minutes if I'm going to become a loyal reader of a blog...and it usually isn't by a mandatory follow of the blog.
I have another giveway coming up that will be perfect for holiday greeting cards! Are you sick of all my giveaway tweets and Facbooking? If not, I'll go ahead and start the new giveaway on Monday!
Amen, to it all. As a reformed perpetrator of the forced following, I agree it's not the right thing to do! I want people to *want* to follow me :)
ReplyDeleteA lot of people don't have it anymore, but for those that do, turn off the music! There's nothing I hate more than being bombarded with someone's awful music choices while surfing. :P
ReplyDeleteAll great info! :)
ReplyDeleteHi! I agree with your comments! I've not heard of Rafflecopter, but I went to check it out and it's invitation-only. :(
ReplyDeleteI agree! I need to clean up my blog roll page so bad! I'm having a new design put in at the end of November so I don't want to mess around too much, but that page drives me nuts every time I look at it! Also, the music thing drives me bananas!
ReplyDeletejust wrote a draft regarding a few of these! I agree with #1, STOP WITH THE COMMENT VERIFICATION! its so annoying and makes me not want to comment. And people wonder why other bloggers don't comment.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of these, but I have to add: get rid of your music. That's my # 1 pet peeve in blogging. For me, it's worse that captcha. :)
ReplyDeleteall great points! and I always beg my blogging friends that if I am an offender of one of the major no-no's to let me know cause I may be oblivious to it!!! :)
ReplyDeleteAgree on all accounts! I used to have the captcha on-so annoying, so I realized you can turn it off. I also have a blog love page-you are on:) I made the first few giveaways with a mandatory request to follow but I nixed that a month ago.
ReplyDeleteLol, love it! I've been thinking about the following thing lately. I've got some giveaways lined up and I've been debating about changing the way I do things. I get both sides. On one side, I feel like it's a pretty simple thing do (and you're pretty much guaranteed more giveaways and knowledge of them if you follow me), but I also don't want people to follow if they don't really like me, you know? Oh and I love the no reply blogger thing - I love to respond via email and it drives me crazy when it's not enabled!
ReplyDeleteGreat tips mama!
I just found out about Rafflecopter and will totally be using it in the future!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I also love Rafflecopter giveaways (I haven't done any, but for entering they're great!). I just changed from a no-reply blogger - thanks for the info. I also need to line my blog love page up better, but added your button. I do really like your blog and want to be a follower :)
ReplyDeleteI agree to all of these (especially "Don't "make" me follow your blog"). If something is wrong with my blog, I'd prefer to be told. I see pros and cons of RC as a blogger, but as a person who also enters giveaways, I LOVE RC. I have noticed entries on comment giveaways seems to be down, and I still enter them (and win more on those giveaways).
ReplyDeleteAnother thing you could add is, don't have music on your blog. If I wanted to listen to music, I would have it on.
So I did the tutorial to fix the noreply thing. but it's stuff showing up like that to me. Does it show up like this to you?
ReplyDelete