10 Things that Unnecessarily Complicates Your Blog

, , 38 Comments

65 Flares 65 Flares ×

This is a guest post by Tom Walker who is a blogger and designer from a specialist provider of cartridges next day and print media supplies. If you are interested in guest posting on Sam’s Web Guide, please visit our guest post guidelines page here.

Failure to monitor your blog can result in the advent of non-standards compliant code that not only gives your blog a cluttered look, but sometimes causes your blog’s pages to load improperly or not at all. With all the modern emphasis on productivity comes an equally important emphasis on simplicity and order on the Web. A successful blog needs to be useful and visually appealing which means that to keep yours on the radar, you’re going to have to clean it up a bit. Here are some steps you can take to keep your blog simple, clean and in tip-top shape.

1. Offload or Reduce Your Blogroll

It’s nice to list some other blogs that you and your readers might be interested in, but does it really have to be on every page? That’s up to you, but you should carefully consider moving it out of the way and planting it on its own page rather than cluttering up your sidebar.

2. Delete the Spam Kill Count

Useless elements like Akismet’s spam counter do nothing to contribute to the mission of your blog, so why bother? Everyone knows about the Akismet plugin for WordPress and that it indeed does kill spam, but what value is the kill count to your blog. Think about taking that off your blog so users can pay attention to you instead.

3. Remove RSS Feeds for Posts

Most people aren’t interested in an RSS feed for a post anyway: if they are, they can bookmark it. Besides, too many feeds complicate your blog, so removing all but the main one should help your blog.

4. Ease Off the Social Bookmark Buttons

Many people find all those submission buttons for each post to be distracting, so why do some blogs have the icons and links plastered everywhere? If you want to get your posts submitted to these services, either the links or the icons should do. Be sure to discard the one you don’t want to keep. And you don’t need to list fifty options: stick to the main players, ie. Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious.

5. Delete Your WordPress Version Number

By default, WordPress shows the world what version of the software is running your blog. First, that is not interesting to most blog readers. Another thing is that hackers can judge by the version number what vulnerabilities exist on your site, so it’s always best to keep this information off your site.

6. Reduce the Number of Categories

Category lists can get excessively long, and they aren’t the most popular part of a blog anyway. Besides, if it is shorter more people will be likely to browse through it. Make your blog less complicated by keeping your number of categories low.

7. Put Polls in Posts, Not in the Sidebar

It’s great to learn the opinions of your visitors, but how about writing a post and including your poll there? Polls in the sidebar give your blog a cluttered look and can distract visitors from the real you.

8. Move Your Archives

Readers who are interested in learning more from your site will be happy to click on a separate page to navigate your archive. Your blog will look much cleaner too.

9. Counters and Alexa Widgets Have to Go

These gizmos take up real estate on your blog, but don’t contribute anything to a positive user experience: take them off.

10. Have a Utility Area

Consolidate site policies to your “About Me” page so people can learn about your blog all in one place. If you offer services, then create a dedicated services page too. Same goes for your contact form.

Now that you’ve tried these steps, your mind is probably coming up with more ways to clean up your blog. Keep working at it and soon you’ll have a clean blog that meets modern expectations. You and your readers will be pleased with the results.

65 Flares Twitter 3 Facebook 3 Google+ 0 LinkedIn 0 Email -- Email to a friend 65 Flares ×

Leave a Reply, Join the Community

(*) Required, Your email will not be published

 

38 Responses

    • Sam

      04/24/2010, 08:55 pm

      Hey Ed! Thanks for commenting :)

      Its great to have a poll nested within a supporting article. This easily engages our readers and will likely generate better results than a lone one in the sidebar.

      Reply
    • Sam

      04/24/2010, 08:57 pm

      Hey Mathdelane, thanks for passing through :)

      Less is definitely more and clutter will turn off any reader. Its good to have targeted information in the sidebar. Every aspect of the site should serve a definite purpose and benefit the reader and/or the blogger.

      Reply
    • Sam

      04/24/2010, 09:03 pm

      Its good to see you here again Jarrod :)

      The user’s experience is always the major priority and reorganizing your site and getting rid of unnecessary widgets will definitely make a more pleasant experience for visitors.

      Reply
    • Sam

      04/24/2010, 09:17 pm

      Hey Jason! Thanks for commenting :)

      I know exactly what you mean. I took a look at your blog and I’ll be honest: I think you should reduce the amount of widgets being displayed on the site; this can be a bit distracting for your visitors. Other than that you have a nice blog with lots of potential. If you need any help here, I would love to assist.

      Thanks again for reading.

      Reply
  6. Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing

    04/24/2010, 03:13 pm

    Quite useful to me; still building and all.

    I am making a page sort blogroll, but different from most, not just a link farm.

    I’ll definitely be cutting my social icons down some; got 15 now…you think those are the 5 most popular?

    I think some pols were well in sidebars as sticky points, plus you might have one that needs more then an articles worth of response time.

    Over-all, great points.
    .-= Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..TweetMeme Installed! I Have Some Questions… =-.

    Reply
    • Sam

      04/24/2010, 09:32 pm

      Hey Dennis,

      I think those 5 are the main ones that can give you great results, with twitter being the best performer based on what I’ve observed on other sites as with myself.

      For the polls, I think a good strategy would be to publish an article to announce the poll or have it nested in a post with similar topic, then place it in the sidebar. That way we would directing our readers to the poll rather than leaving it all up to chance for them to discover it, which will result in a higher level of interaction. Its all about making use of every element on the site.

      Reply
    • Sam

      04/25/2010, 10:08 pm

      Thanks so much for taking the time to comment Joshua :)

      I would not bother to share a post on a site that has 30 options to search through when I may be looking for one particular bookmark. Some bloggers really need to have usability in mind.

      Hope to see you here again Joshua.

      Reply
  9. element321

    04/25/2010, 03:01 pm

    Great post. Found you through Blog Engage.

    I agree with you, a lot of things you mention can also slow your site down as well. Just by follow your site you can unclutter and speed up your site.

    Only question I have. I made the mistake of starting off with to many categories. I now only 12 and have maybe 10 I no longer use. If I go through those old posts will and change categories. will it mess up links and other things in WordPress. I been researching this and I have found much on it.
    .-= element321´s last blog ..Beginning jQuery Tutorial Links – Daily Delicious links April 22, 2010 =-.

    Reply
    • Sam

      04/25/2010, 10:14 pm

      Hey James, thanks for taking the time to comment.

      Changing the categories within which your posts are filed through wordpress will not create any problems. The only thing that may happen is that if you have built up a good page rank for those particular URL’s, you may lose the ranking since google will still be pointing to the old URL. However, no technical problems should arise.

      Hope to see you here again James :)

      Reply
    • Sam

      04/29/2010, 05:08 pm

      Thanks for reading Sachin,

      Simpler is oftentimes definitely better. You’ve been doing a great job at this on your blog :)

      Reply
    • Sam

      04/29/2010, 05:11 pm

      Thanks Kimi :)

      The alexa rank widget promotes alexa more than it does so for anyone’s blog.

      Thanks for being a frequent reader :D

      Reply
  12. Zhu

    04/26/2010, 08:40 pm

    I did end up moving my blogroll to a dedicated page and I believe it is much more user-friendly. Suggestions such as moving the archives to a dedicated page are great as well.

    I never understand people who proudly display the Akismet widget. I mean… what’s the point???

    Reply
  13. Tola @ SEO for Beginners

    04/27/2010, 06:45 am

    Nice list!
    Quite brutal but truthful, I like it… A lot of those widgets and stuff we put on our blogs help the designers more than they help us but some of them are quite useful. I guess it’s down to user’s choice and you as the blog owner to find out if people actually use most of those widgets and tools found on your blog.
    .-= Tola @ SEO for Beginners´s last blog ..8 Cool Uses for Google Analytics =-.

    Reply
    • Sam

      04/29/2010, 05:17 pm

      Hey Tola! Thanks for taking the time to comment :)

      All widgets should serve some purpose for the readers. Unless the blogger’s goal is not to please readers.

      Its a waste of hosting resources as well as valuable space that could even be used for advertising helpful products.

      Reply
    • Sam

      05/12/2010, 05:17 am

      Hey Collen,

      Be sure to use plugins in moderation and not have too many installed. Having a large number of plugins installed can significantly slow down your blog’s loading time. So if there are some installed that really don’t serve a definite purpose for you, its best to delete them.

      Reply
  16. Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing

    05/12/2010, 07:16 pm

    I use a considerable amount of plugins for things I need and will most likely keep adding for the same reason…..assuming it’s not something that can be hard-coded instead.

    I think what makes me a little different from most is, I take as much research time as necessary with each before downloading.

    We can all agree that for each plugin, there are 6 more by different coders to do the same thing…at lest with most plugins.

    I will go through each one, read up, ask around, this and that, then eventually download the best one.

    I’ve never heard a complaint on my load time. :)
    .-= Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..Warning: 8 Posts Coming Back to Back =-.

    Reply