10 Easy Ways To Piss Off Your Readers
Sep. 7th, 2007 by ShaunEveryone knows that high quality content is the most important factor on a site, but the features and usability on any site is very important as well. Here is a list of things you should avoid while running a successful site.
1. Small font size -If your readers have to squint to see your content, then you can expect them to not ever read it.
2. In-Text advertisements - This form of advertising is meant to interrupt your readers and prevents them from accessing your content properly. It is intrusive, unprofessional and no mainstream websites use this style of advertising. I already wrote an entire article on why in-text advertising should be avoided, you can read that here for more information.
3. Not showing related posts - The related posts plugin is one that all blogs should have. Your readers will want somewhere to go after they are done reading your posts. If there is no guidance for your readers then they won’t stay around your site for very long. You can download the related posts plugin here.
4. Missing the RSS Subscription button - Not too many blogs forget to add this to their site but I have came across a few that haven’t had one. I have also seen sites that have the RSS icon but it’s hard to locate on the site, make your RSS Subscription icon easy to find on every single page on your site.
5. Asking your readers for money - Yes I’m talking about all you poor bastards who installed that stupid buy me a beer plugin. I’m not sure how many people agree with me but I would never buy any blog a beer. I’m not saying some bloggers don’t deserve the beer, but I know of too many bloggers that work really hard and there is no one blog that stands out from the rest.
6. Turning off the time stamp on posts- The internet moves at a very fast pace and things change on a daily basis. Knowing when an article was published is very important because information written yesterday might not be the case today.
7. Getting your subscribe to RSS feed mixed up with your search box - A perfect example of this is Problogger.net. The first time I saw his “Subscribe via E-mail” section on his site I thought that was his search box. I don’t think this is too much of a problem for most bloggers but it does happen!
8. Having the “notifiy me of follow upcomments via e-mail” box automatically checked - This is very, very, very annoying. I actively comment on over 50 blogs and the amount of junk e-mail I get from these e-mail notifications is crazy. The majority of your readers won’t notice this box being checked off for them already so you are just flooding their e-mails with these notifications….what a great way to get your readers to never comment on your blog again.
9. Poor color scheme - This applies to: bright colors that will make someone go blind, neon colors (pink, yellow and green), and puke green or yellow colors. Pick visually pleasing colors that will go nicely together on your site.
10. Having a dark background - I think the easiest way to avoid any issues is to have a white background with dark text. Your readers will be able to easily read your content and everyone is happy!
Your site design and usability doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be half decent if you want to run a successful site. Just take 2 minutes and look around your own blog and put yourself in the shoes of your readers. If you don’t like what you see then neither will your readers.
Posted in: The Net |
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September 7th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Good tips. The subscribe to comments box unchecked is an important one. I appreciate it when email options are opt-in. Most users get way too many emails already. What’s your take on a donation button? I have one of those. Is that less annoying than buy me a beer?
September 7th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
@ webomatica:I don’t mind the donation button, it is less blunt than the buy me a beer plugin. I know wikipedia uses the donation button on their site and that doesn’t hurt the site at all. Thanks for the comment!
@gregg: haha no worries man! im glad your installing it
September 7th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
You reminded me that I need to install related posts plugin! Thanks! I forgot all about that when I installed the Ayumi theme because my previous theme (FourWTPT) already had it installed by default!!
September 7th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
LOL, why I would anyone want to piss off their readers
. BTW, my “notifiy me of follow upcomments via e-mail” is checked, and I don’t think this has reduced the number of comments I get on my blog everyday. Some people still don’t bother to uncheck it, and accidentally subscribe to the topic. Still, as long as it is helping me get more traffic, I’m happy with it 
September 7th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Haris I comment on your blog almost everyday and sometimes I forget to uncheck that box. I know for a fact I get some junk follow up e-mails that your site sends because of this. I don’t think your readers uncheck the box because they want to read the follow up comments I think they just don’t realize you’ve already checked it off for them
by the way your completly misunderstanding the point of this post. I’m not encouraging anyone to piss off their readers, I’m simply informing you of ways you can lose vaulable readers by making these mistakes. thanks for the comment by the way.
September 7th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Good post shaun, i would agree with you on these points.
5. As long as ads are not showing buy me beer buttons are ok, but if you show ads and also ask your readers to donate is not always the right thing to do.
6. This is a bad practice. If it is related to news story you will be confused to know whether it is the latest buzz or not.
September 7th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I agree I think ads and the buy me a beer plugin is just too much. With respect to your point #6 that’s a very good point I didn’t really consider it that way, but even to some degree the time a post was written even if it isn’t news related might get out-dated. Lets take SEO for example, I wouldn’t consider this news but SEO advices changes all the time and certain SEO techniques that were used a year ago aren’t really important today.
September 7th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Point number 8 can be very annoying. I’m still getting emails from posts I commented on way back.
Very good list Shaun. Stumbled it
September 8th, 2007 at 11:39 am
@thomas: haha I’m glad someone agrees with me. I can’t stand getting these stupid e-mail. Thanks for the stumble!
@rony john: haha no worries man!
@YC: I have read about them in some blogs, they work a bit but I think selling private ads would generate more money.
September 8th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Thanks for speaking it out…I will do this after a few years..
ha ha ….hah
September 8th, 2007 at 3:00 am
Great points there Shaun - never really thought about these!
5. I’m actually curious if these really really work. Some bloggers say they do make some small amounts off these - but I see loads of posts which honestly aren’t the most original yet they ask for beer money.
Same reason why I didn’t put this up on my site. 
7. Thought I was the only one who had this in mind!
September 8th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Great list Shaun - I’m thinking I might go turn off my comment notification check.
September 8th, 2007 at 11:42 am
@ heather: haha it’s your blog do as you wish! thanks for the compliments !!!
@ Sean: yeh I agree as well, those points are an instant turn off when I visit other blogs and makes me want to just leave
The plugin I use for subscribe to comments via e-mail can be found here: http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/.
September 8th, 2007 at 9:13 am
8,9, and 10 is the one I run into most of the time and it’s very annoying and make me want to leave!
September 8th, 2007 at 9:14 am
It’s also nice that you have the reply to this comment plug-n installed…
Which are you using?
September 8th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Nice tips . Even i get irritated by the blogs who keep there subscribe to comment box checked .
September 8th, 2007 at 11:42 am
haha thanks im happy im not the only one who hates that lol.
September 8th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
LOL, looks like people do really hate the comment notification box checked. I’ll leave it un-checked from now on.
September 8th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
hehe thanks harris! now i can comment freely on your site yay
September 8th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
[…] 10 Easy Ways To Piss Off Your Readers - “Everyone knows that high quality content is the most important factor on a site, but the features and usability on any site is very important as well. Here is a list of things you should avoid while running a successful site.“ […]
September 8th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Shaun, I did not put up a notify of followup comments on my blog - is it advisable to put up at least an option - some say it does help in encouraging activity.
September 9th, 2007 at 2:03 am
[…] Low put together a list of 10 things that all of us bloggers should try to avoid in order not to piss readers […]
September 9th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
[…] 10 Easy Ways To Piss Off Your Readers (Shaun Low) […]
September 9th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
[…] 10 Easy Ways To Piss Off Your Readers by Shaun Low […]
September 9th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Thank you for this list! Especially number 10! Blog sites with dark backgrounds are an automatic skip for me. Why should a reader have to struggle to read the text? And those with with bright pink background etc, ugh…………
September 9th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
[…] 10 Easy Ways to Piss Off Your Readers by Shaun Low […]
September 10th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I’m one of the people that rarely click on related posts.
I mainly ignore them. I do disagree about the related post before I installed it the average length on my website was a little over seven minutes. People can search my website using the search feature and they can click on the categories they like. I also link to posts that are similar within posts so I really don’t see the need for it. i stopped using it since it was causing conflict with a plug in I really liked.The amount of time people spent on my website did not decrease it still is a little over seven minutes. It’s a matter of preference people don’t all like the same thing so what might annoy one reader won’t automatically annoy another. 
September 10th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
@ opal: that’s very interesting Opal. I would have expected the time spent on your site to have greatly decrease, this is something I have to look into, but I guess I was basing this post off of my own experience and it wasn’t really backed factual data like yours. I have also read other blogs that the related posts plugin greatly helped their site. I know for a fact that I use the related posts plugin often when browsing other websites. Thanks for the comment this is somethign I would like to look into a little deeper
@ fernandes: haha did you at least make some money from it?
September 10th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Hi,
good advice. I have removed the buy me a beer plugin
September 11th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
[…] I just found this after I made the post, but I liked it so here it is: 10 Easy Ways To Piss Off Your Readers, by Shaun […]
September 12th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
haha, Poor color scheme?
September 13th, 2007 at 12:50 am
point 8 is one of my pet peaves too ! Why do people do this ?? It’s evil IMHO.
Becky
September 15th, 2007 at 1:33 am
@ becky: haha very evil
@ susan: yeah a few in-text ads in a lengthy article is fine but how often does that actually happen lol?
September 13th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I agree with #2, MSNBC is driving me nuts with their in-text Ads,…I think they are running Vibrant, dunno I would have check back again. Although I do feel that sometimes it can work on select sites. I guess it depends on how frequent it shows up within 1 post/article. If it’s a lengthly article with 1 or 2 in-text links, I’m fine with that. If it’s littered with them…then I’m pissed off!
September 13th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Good advice, thanks,
http://ultraside.blogspot.com
September 15th, 2007 at 6:45 am
another great and useful post, you have a great site her Shaun, i need to fix a couple of these on my blog
September 16th, 2007 at 2:00 am
[…] Don’t ever piss of your readers. If you do want to do, read some tips to piss of readers by Shaun and read another good article on how to increase comments on your blogs by […]
September 16th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Ouch- I have the buy me a coffee plugin on my site so I guess I’m a bastard.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:18 am
You forgot the most important one: When you came to a blog and it takes ages to load the page.
(A recommendation to you: make 5 posts instead of 10 in your blog it will load faster)
September 19th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
@ rose: hahaha sorry I didn’t mean to offend! i’ll buy you a cofee to make up for it
@ google lady: I know!!!! i hate blogs that take forever to load the bloody home page. thanks for the comment .
September 19th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Uh oh, I think I just violated a couple of those. =:-O
Great post! I heartily agree with the intext ads…TURN OFF. And being inundated with ads screaming at you from every which way. I run fast and never come back.
Thanks for the tips. As a new blogger (or as I like to call myself - blagger - one who lags about blogging) I shall have to refer to this from time to time! ;o)
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I agree with much in the list. There is an eleventh one, using huge buttons for social bookmarking
January 26th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Great post…kind of amusing. It’s good to know I’m not the only person who mistakes sign up by e-mail boxes for search boxes. My e-mail subscription isn’t a box at all, just for that reason.
And thanks for reminding me to add the related posts call to my new theme…it was one of those things I’d forgotten to transfer over.
February 17th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
[…] way. Don’t ever piss of your readers. If you do want to do, read some tips to piss of readers by Shaun and read another good article on how to increase comments on your blogs by […]
May 16th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
[…] way. Don’t ever piss of your readers. If you do want to do, read some tips to piss of readers by Shaun and read another good article on how to increase comments on your blogs by […]
May 30th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
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