When trying to find new blogs to follow, there are several things that make me leave and never come back.
Most of these deal breakers are pretty general, but some are catered to my taste, so don’t take things too personally.
No follow button: Seriously, what the fresh hell? This is my number one pet peeve. How are people supposed to keep up with your content? Make it happen and make it obvious. If I can’t find your follow button in five seconds, I’m gone. And make it a follow button, a lot of people are really reluctant to subscribe and have their e-mails bombarded. If you ever want to be even a somewhat serious blogger, get Bloglovin’. It’s a great way to follow blogs across platforms.
Massive chunks of text: If you’re like me and mindlessly scroll through blog posts until something pops out, if it’s not broken up in some way, nothing goes in. Not only do I break up my text posts, I bold the main ideas so people can jump around as they please.
Broken theme: While theme style is about personal choice and I try not to hold it against someone too much, a broken theme or broken theme aspects is just neglectful. It tells me you don’t look at your own blog enough to care. If you’re not sure how to fix your broken theme, use Google, get in contact with the theme creator, something. Be resourceful, you’re a blogger, damn it.
Too many pictures: If you’re posting 15+ extremely large pictures in a post to make it so I have to scroll to kingdom come to get through the text content, my fingers become wary and I get impatient. If you’re going to include pictures in the text, don’t make them too many or too big.
Not posting for months: Although I understand not being able to post for a while and there’s nothing wrong with that, I see bloggers promote their content on Twitter when they haven’t posted anything new in months. Focus on making new content instead because once people see you don’t post consistently, it may be a deal breaker.
Being too formal: You’re not texting your B.F.F. Jill. Don’t start your blog posts out with “Heyyy” or use 20 emojis. If you’re going to be familiar, at least make it somewhat professional.
Using GIFS: This isn’t BuzzFeed.
Anything “Instagrammable”: I don’t have an Instagram, I’ve never had an Instagram. If I wanted an Instagram, yes, I probably can go out and get one… I’ve been watching too much Drag Race, but you get the idea. I physically roll my eyes whenever I see posts like this. Some bloggers are so focused on documenting their experiences rather than living them and while pictures are a great way to capture memories, it shouldn’t be a priority.
Not following back: I don’t expect every single person I follow to follow me back, but if you follow bloggers through a blogging train, follow them back. That’s the whole purpose, is it not?
Too many adverts: While working with products can be a great way to earn money from your blog, a lot of the time, it seems forced. I feel like Truman in The Truman Show experiencing product placement to weirdly inappropriate levels.
On another blogging-related note, I will make writing a post about my six months in the U.K. since I moved here and will be featuring a Q&A, so send me your questions as a comment below, on Twitter or on Curious Cat if you would like to remain anonymous!
Photo by Toa Heftiba.
Loved this so much and agree so much with everything. The only one that is a grey area is the follow train thing. I do use them personally but if someone follows me then I check out their content and it’s not something I’m particularly interested in, I don’t follow back as I wouldn’t want to be an inactive follower. I’d be fine with roles reversed too 😊
Great post. I agree with them all except the follow train one. It would be unfair to feel like you have to follow someone back just because they follow you. If someone follows me but their content isn’t something I’m interested in I won’t follow back. Same goes if they weren’t interested in mine’s. I’d rather they didn’t follow if that was the case
Great post! A lof of these things bother me too but it was super helpful to read some other things that could bother people on my blog!
Em ~ thisisemsworld.com
I reckon I’ve followed about 60 people in the last week through blogger trains and had approx 10 follows!
GIFs in blogs are awful.
Same! No mutual follows are so disappointing.
I completely agree with most of these points! I don’t think GIF should have a place in blogposts at all! x
http://www.chloeharriets.com/
If someone doesn’t have a follow button I won’t be back. I keep up with blogs through WordPress reader. I’m guilty of not always following back if the content isn’t something I’m interested in as that just makes more stuff I have to scroll through whether it be on Twitter or WordPress. I’ll have to look into Bloglovin, thanks for the tip.
I still use Blogger and their “follow” situation is absolutely shite. Thanks for the tip about Bloglovin – I’ll look into that one.