Jakob Nielsen wrote an article about web design mistakes bloggers make.
Who is Jakob Nielson?

Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., is a User Advocate and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group which he co-founded with Dr. Donald A. Norman (former VP of research at Apple Computer). Until 1998 he was a Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer.

Dr. Nielsen founded the “discount usability engineering” movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces and has invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation. He holds 79 United States patents, mainly on ways of making the Internet easier to use.

Continue reading for top ten web design mistakes made by bloggers.

1. No Author Biographies

Unless you’re a business blog, you probably don’t need a full-fledged “about us” section the way a corporate site does. That said, the basic rationale for “about us” translates directly into the need for an “about me” page on a weblog: users want to know who they’re dealing with.

2. No Author Photo

A huge percentage of the human brain is dedicated to remembering and recognizing faces. For many, faces work better than names.

3. Nondescript Posting Titles

Users must be able to grasp the gist of an article by reading its headline. Avoid cute or humorous headlines that make no sense out of context.

4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go

Many weblog authors seem to think it’s cool to write link anchors like: “some people think” or “there’s more here and here.” Remember one of the basics of the Web: Life is too short to click on an unknown. Tell people where they’re going and what they’ll find at the other end of the link.

5. Classic Hits are Buried

Remember to link to your past pieces in newer postings. Don’t assume that readers have been with you from the beginning; give them background and context in case they want to read more about your ideas.

6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation

Categories must be sufficiently detailed to lead users to a thoroughly winnowed list of postings. At the same time, they shouldn’t be so detailed that users face a category menu that’s overly long and difficult to scan. Ten to twenty categories are appropriate for structuring many topics.

7. Irregular Publishing Frequency

Daily updates are probably best, but weekly or even monthly updates might work as well, depending on your topic. In either case, pick a publication schedule and stick to it. If you usually post daily but sometimes let months go by without new content, you’ll lose many of your loyal — and thus most valuable — readers.

8. Mixing Topics

If you publish on many different topics, you’re less likely to attract a loyal audience of high-value users. Busy people might visit a blog to read an entry about a topic that interests them. They’re unlikely to return, however, if their target topic appears only sporadically among a massive range of postings on other topics. The only people who read everything are those with too much time on their hands (a low-value demographic).

9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss

Whenever you post anything to the Internet — whether on a weblog, in a discussion group, or even in an email — think about how it will look to a hiring manager in ten years. Once stuff’s out, it’s archived, cached, and indexed in many services that you might never be aware of.

10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

As soon as you realize you’re serious about blogging, move it away from a domain name that’s controlled by somebody else. The longer you delay, the more pain you’ll feel when you finally make the move.

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