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Coding Horror: Thirteen Blog Clichés

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Saved by 9 people (1 private), first by anonymouse user on 2007-08-18


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The Useless Calendar Widget

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Random Images Arbitrarily Inserted In Text

One of the cardinal rules of web writing is to avoid large blocks of text. There are plenty of excellent web writing guides that exhort you to break up your text, using bullets, numbered lists, quotes, paragraph breaks, images-- anything, anything to avoid creating an intimidating wall of dense, impenetrable text.

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As the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. But you should no more insert a random image into your writing than you would insert a thousand random words into your writing. I don't care how beautiful your photographs are, it's a terrible, irresponsible practice that distracts and harms readability.

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No Information on the Author

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Blogs work because they're simple. When we clutter up our blogs with a zillion widgets, features, and add-ons, we're destroying an essential part of what makes blogs worthwhile.

Bookmark at these sites

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And do your readers really want to see pictures of the last 10 visitors to your blog?

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Citing your references and influences is a great and necessary thing, but obsessively listing every single blog you read-- the so-called "blogroll"--  is just noise.

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The reality is that tag cloud visualizations are chaotic, noisy, and unusable. Keep the tagging, lose the cloud. A simple sorted list of tags, along with the number of posts associated with each tag, is much more effective.

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It is almost never in the reader's interest to see advertisements, so my advice is to tread very lightly, and be respectful of your audience. Bad advertising is so prevalent that if you take the time to advertise responsibly, you may find that readers appreciate you for it.

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This Ain't Your Diary

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It's OK to be yourself; at some level, it is a cult of personality: people are reading not only because your content is useful to them, but because they like you. It's normal to inject a regular dose of yourself into the conversation.

But like Tabasco sauce and other powerful seasonings, a little YOU goes a long way. A really long way. Write accordingly.

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Sorry I Haven't Written in a While

If you haven't posted anything new to your blog in a while, don't waste our time with apologies. Just write! The best apology is new and improved content. Maybe with a wee bit more consistency this time, though.

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Blogging About Blogging

I find meta-blogging -- blogging about blogging -- incredibly boring.

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if everyone else is talking about it, that means you should avoid talking about it. Switch things up. Seek out uncommon sites with unique information. Dig down to original sources

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If all you can find to talk about is what's already popular, you're not trying hard enough. Form your own opinion. Do your own research. Go out of your way to blaze a new trail and create something we haven't already seen hundreds of times before.

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Top (n) Lists

Yes, exactly like this one.

The problem with Top (n) Lists is that they become a substitute for critical thinking,

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No Comments Allowed

A blog without comments is not a blog.

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The sum total of community contributions is far more useful than any one thing you'll ever write.

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Besides, It's an open secret in the blogging community that the comments are often better than the original blog entry itself.

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