Why This Blog Sucks

This is a guest post by Edward Khoo. I died laughing when I realized nearly all of this applies to my blog. I'll highlight the ones that sting a little (or a lot) and add some commentary.

If I don't love it, I don't SWALLOW.

You check your traffic every day but all you find are tumbleweeds blowing across the landscape of your blog. Well, there’s a reason you’re not building readership. Your blog sucks.

Most do, and all for the same reasons. The same 10 reasons.

1. You use syndicated content. You can download badly-written articles on the topic of your website at ezine.com, helium.com, goarticles.com and other places on the web. You can cut and paste these pieces on your blog and all you have to do is provide a link back to the author’s site or blog. You can, but you shouldn’t. Without unique content your blog is nothing. Shoot. I guess I shouldn't have copied this article.

2. Your blog is boring. There I said it. Write about topics that interest me, your reader, not topics that interest you. I want you to keep me engaged, entertain me and teach me. Otherwise, you’re boring me. I'm just another random white guy. How vanilla is that? Now... if I cover myself in chocolate I get a lot more interesting.

3. Your blog revolves around your person. Stop talking about yourself already. I don’t know you personally, and I couldn’t care less about your ramblings. Tell me something I can use in my own life. Facts, stories, not boring personal stuff. I pride myself on having no facts and this blog is my Horcurx so I guess I loose on this account.

4. Oh no, not your favorite music on auto-play! So as soon as I access your blog, the ukulele string quartet starts playing? I’d rather hear an accordion band. Don’t add music to your site. Half the people won’t like it and the other half will find it’s a distraction. Yes!!! I finally did something right.

5. You use clip art. I can spot it a mile away. The model smiling, the perfect family spending the day at the beach, the marathon runner – all license free clip art. And with free clip art, you get what you pay for. I disagree. Clip art is SICK. Anyone who can't get behind mass produced art is not worth a bucket of camel spit in the wind.

6. I can’t find the post I want to read. So I have to scroll down through pages and pages to find the piece you posted two months ago. First, even the simplest blog platforms allow for categories and search boxes. I've actually done this to defend prior idiotic statements so I guess I'm safe here.

7. Your writing totally sucks. Oh, not the writing itself. You’ve got a good writing style. Easy to read. But your posts are loaded with typos, misspellings, lost punctuation and other mistakes that signal you don’t care enough about your readers. BURRRRRRRRNNNNNN!!!

8. You’re spinning articles. You might not be using software to actually spin the articles, but you are writing about the same stuff everyone else inside your niche is. This is not as bad as getting content from article directories, as you are actually using your own words here, but it won’t cut it all the same. Write something interesting or go home. Guilty as charged. I don't have an original thought in my head. It all comes from the green little men that visit me when I sleep.

9. You post once a month. How often you think I’m coming back to see if there’s some new, pithy pearl of wisdom I can glean from your blog? If you can’t update your blog at least a couple of times a week, forget about it. I'm guilty here because I'll try to keep my day job and not post for weeks at a time then have a massive output like the last few days. Yes, I suck.

10. Your blog looks like 12023532989 other blogs. WordPress offers hundreds of templates from which to choose. So, if you choose Minima Brown, your blog will look like all the other writers who build blogs using Minima Brown (or Blue). My fingers are trembling. I'm not sure I can continue. Not only is my look ordinary, it is dated. I hate myself and my pathetic look!

Does your blog suck? Well, roll up your sleeves and do something about it. It is still time! Dude. Just because I suck, why on earth would I change? Here are my reasons.

1. Syndicated content rocks. 
2. By being boring, I make others seem interesting. I make a difference for people that actually try. 
3. Since this blog is a Horcrux I have to blog about myself. No choice here. Even my Horcurx sucks.   
7. If I were a good writer why would I be blogging???
8. Sometimes other people just said it right. Get over it or go home.
9. My inconsistency is probably a good reason people don't read. That and oh yeah, - I SUCK.
10. My layout is unattractive. Perhaps this is one thing I might venture to change. Until then, I suck.
   
Edward Khoo writes about blogging tips and tech stuffs at his blog EdwardKhoo.com. You can also find him on his Twitter account @squall768.