9 Bad Blog Habits That Make Readers Cringe

Are you guilty of these bad blog habits? Check out out this list and see if you’re making some of these mistakes that make readers cringe and costing you growth

Bad Blog Habits That Make Readers Cringe

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These bad blog habits are based on what I see on blogs, not blogging or blogger’s bad habits (although I’m sure a few can fall into that category as well).

1. Centering your text

I used to do this in the early days of clickstartclub. In fact, I still come across old posts that I need to reformat. It drives me up the wall.

Align your text to the left, it’s easier to read. That being said, I prefer my images to be centered.

2. Not Separating Your Words with Images or Headings

Having a text-only post is really hard to read, not just for my eyes but for my interest as well. Separate it with images and headings!

3. Click Bait Titles

Seriously, deliver what you promised! You don’t want your readers to leave your article confused on what it was even about. There are good titles out that that fall under click bait, but if the article delivers what they promised, it’s not an issue.

Example of a good click bait title:

See what queen of real estate XYZ says will change your buying and selling game. – if linked to helpful tips on buying and selling real estate or an interview with tips.

4. Not Including a Way To Share Your Post

I hate this! When I visit a blog and they have awesome content, I am going to share it. It is so disheartening to see they don’t have a widget or buttons above (or below) the post to share on social media.

We here at Click Start Club highly recommend Social Warfare.

5. Not Including How to Follow You on Social Media

Adding on to the above bad blog habit, include ways for your new reader to follow you!

6. Pop-Ups That Take Up The Whole Page

Stop it, especially those that are hard to x out of. If you would like to work with a pop-up, I recommend using MiloTree. They are Google compliant and are not as intrusive as the majority out there (you have seen it here on Click Start Club).

7. Inconsistent Posting

This is something that I’m guilty of on at Click Start Club. I do what I can to post 3x a week on TBK, although it could be different days and here at CSC we try for two posts a week. We’re still finding out grove on the days but posting the same amount of articles is what we’re striving for.

8. Outdated Recipe Plugins

I often see bloggers still rocking EasyRecipe on their food blogs, but (from what the experts have told me) they haven’t updated in quite some time and you may not be fully optimizing your posts for SEO because of it.

We highly recommend WP Tasty Recipes as your recipe plugin, yes you have to pay for it but that is an investment. They have both schema and JSON, you’re fully optimized for both Pinterest and Google search results. The more information you input (caloric information, author box, summary, etc) the higher your chances of making it to the top of Google (and the carousel at the very top).

9. Outdated Aesthetic

It’s not often in my travels around the interwebs I come across this, but it happens. Whenever I see a website that has that old scrapbooking theme that we all used back in 2008 or a layout and color scheme that reminds me of an old Geo Cities site I lose interest fast. It’s hard to take the blog/website seriously and it hurts my eyes.

It’s not as expensive as one would think to have a beautiful theme. There are free templates with WordPress that look fresh and are easy on the eyes if you have no budget but you can buy a quality theme for less than $50! Check out where to buy pretty WordPress themes.

How often do you post on your blog?

So what did I miss? Do you have any bad blog habits you want to add in the comments?