(Editor’s Note: When Castor at Anomalous Material came to me, asking if he could submit one or two articles about better blog design, I offered him a monthly feature. At AM, Castor has posted many articles with great tips on making your blog an overall great place to be. AM also hosted the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog project in August ‘10, with loads of participation. Think of this as an “advice” column of sorts. I’m sure questions are welcome. And if anyone can think of a good name for this new feature, the floor is open to suggestions. -Rachel)
Have you been blogging for some time and are grieving over the fact that after all that effort, Google Analytics keeps telling you that no-one is coming? Are you wondering why you never seem to get any comments or any sign of life from the people “visiting” your site?
Dear fellow movie bloggers, this is your first step toward greater understanding! Here are 3 brutal reasons why people might click away from your (movie) blog before they ever even read a sentence of your content.
1. Slow loading
Generally, a blog that takes more than 8-10 seconds to completely load is considered slow. Your blog could be great but if it takes 20+ seconds to fully show up in a browser, very few people will ever get to read your content, no matter how great it is. One of the main problem that perpetuates this problem is that the blog owner is usually completely unaware of the issue. Because they usually spend a lot of time on their own blog, it seems to load quickly for them since it is cached in their browser. To make your blog load faster:
It take a lot more time to load 100 pictures of 10 kilobytes than one single picture of 1000 kilobytes. I see a lot of blogs with dozens or even hundreds of little pictures in the sidebar and those are the sites that take literally 60+ seconds to load. Needless to say, most people will simply browse away before your site has finished loading. Each picture is a server request that ends up slowing down the loading of your entire site.
- Upload and Optimize your pictures
Requesting pictures from a large number of different sites is a sure way of dramatically slowing down your blog. Use the good practice of uploading all your pictures to the same location. For the pictures that will show up on your site, also make sure that they are optimized: The picture should be the same approximate size as it will appear on your blog, it should be a jpg file and should be only between 10-100 kilobytes in most cases. There is nothing to be gained in uploading a 1600 x 1200 picture that will be displayed as a tiny 300 x 200 on your blog.
- YouTube videos, plugins, widgets, music autoplay, ads…
Blogs with more than one or two YouTube videos on the homepage are not only slow to load, they are just not interesting. If I wanted to watch video clips, I would go to YouTube. Various widgets and plugins that clutter the blog also do not add value while slowing down loading. Always look for gadgets to trim if you use any because let’s face it, no one uses them. As for music autoplay, trust me, just don’t do it.
2. Poor design
Ask yourself: What do you do when you land on an amateurish-looking website? A poorly designed blog is one of the fastest way to lose readers before they even click on any of your content. May it be poor choice of colors, nearly unreadable text, poor navigation or a dysfunctional template, most people will not stick very long if your blog doesn’t look right. If you are blogging on, at least, a semi-serious basis, your blog needs to look as professional as possible for people to take you seriously.
Every blog worth his salt needs a logo. I understand that many bloggers are unwilling to move away from Blogger or Wordpress.com and having a logo is the easiest way to separate your blog from the hundreds of others using the same template. These days, you can either design a simple logo all by yourself or get a logo done for less than $30. Logos are an easy way to begin building a brand for your blog.
The truth is most people judge a book by its cover. Weird color combination, small or unreadable fonts, pictures that are out of proportion or do not fit their frame etc… Those are easy reasons for a new visitor to click away before even giving your blog a chance. A blog doesn’t necessarily have to be pretty but it definitely cannot be ugly. A good rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t edit your template unless you know exactly what you are doing (most people don’t)
Film is a visual art yet I find it very hard to understand why so many blogs absolutely refuse to use more pictures. Giant blocks of text are extremely unappealing and though it could be great writing, the vast majority of people simply do not have the inclination to read endless amount of text. By using pictures to space your post, you increase the odds that at least parts of your content will be read. Pictures are also indexed by Google Image (use alt attribute) which can send you extra traffic.
3. No comments
One of the quickest way of checking whether a blog is active, popular and interesting is to gauge the number of comments. A lack of comments is usually a reliable indicator that I shouldn’t stay very long on your blog. I realize this is going to be controversial but let’s face it, for one reason or another, people are not leaving comments. It is the loyal readers that keeps a blog going, not the hundreds of empty hits that come and go without reading your content or interacting with you. Simply because of human nature, blogs with some semblance of a community are much more likely to see repeat visits. Finally, blog owners absolutely love to get comments! Here are the main reasons a blog doesn’t get comments:
- You are not responding to comments
There is nothing more perplexing than leaving 2 or 3 comments on a blog and coming back to see them unanswered. Needless to say I don’t waste my time on these blogs again. Even if all you have to say is “Thanks for dropping by Castor”, you better say something to a first-time visitor who takes the time to write a comment. That can easily be the difference between a one-time visitor and someone who comes back several times.
- No participation in the wider community
There is no shortcut to getting people to comment on your blog. You need to pick 20 to 30 blogs in your niche and start commenting regularly on those. Until then, you will never get more than the occasional comment at best. You will find out that any blogger worth his/her salt will reciprocate by commenting on your blog as well.
This is by far the most serious problem a blog can have because there is no easy fix. Do you have anything to offer or are you simply echoing content you have seen somewhere else? Are you simply posting YouTube clips or links to others blogs? Regurgitating news items from the big sites? Are you suffering from the big block of text syndrome?
- You are making it too hard
This is almost exclusively a problem with blogs hosted on Blogger. Not everyone has a OpenID or a Blogger account. There is practically no site in the world I would register for simply to leave a comment, let alone one blog. Like everything that is related to blogging, the easier you make it for your readers, the more likely you are to get results. Make sure people can drop a comment with Name/URL only.
- You are not asking for comments
Finally, you need to ask for comments at the end of your posts! Many times, people who are reading your content may not have any idea what to say. Gently steer them toward a topic of discussion by asking one or two questions at the end of your post: “Did you enjoy movie X?” or “Do you think actors are over-compensated?” The natural reaction for many will be to think of an answer and share it, leading to comments on your blog.
I hope you enjoyed these blogging tips! What are some of the things that make you leave a blog nearly immediately? Is it slow loading? Grammar and spelling issues? Let us know in the comments.
Castor is the author of the movie blog Anomalous Material and can be contacted at castor[at]anomalousmaterial.com.
Anyway, ep 74 saw us returning to an old favorite - namely, discussing some of our recent viewings. Steadfast LAMBcasters Dylan, James and Nick were treated to something that I think is pretty cool: Anomalous Material’s Red Georges was able to take some time away from serving his country in Iraq to sit in on our little movie podcast. We had some slight connectivity problems, but I think that was to be expected a bit; still, considering the miles traveled, it wasn’t that bad at all.
