Blog writing...from a reader's perspective

I am in no way an expert on blogging! I have only been blogging for about 8 months so there is still a lot for me to learn. But what I am is an expert reader. Okay, maybe not technically an expert, but close enough. I love to read! I read books, magazines, even the back of the cereal box. And now I read blogs. I love to read blogs, but have noticed that there are some blogs with great content that I rarely read for a variety of reasons. Here are a few of those reasons:

1) Posts that are waaaaaaaay too long. If I have to scroll down 3 or 4 times just to read the post, I usually skim it for pertinent information or skip it altogether. If you have a lot of information to blog about, try to break it up into more than one post.

2) Busy Backgrounds. I love all of the great backgrounds out there and like to change mine often. But when there are images, graphics, or elements on the posting area, it makes it difficult to read your words.

3) Background colors/font colors. Be careful to make sure that you choose a font color and a background color that work well together. If the 2 colors are too close in color it tends to blend in to each other and hard to read. And maybe this one is just me, but dark backgrounds with lighter fonts hurt my eyes!! Some are fine if you would enlarge the font size, but most times it causes my eyes to cross so I pass on those posts.

4) Lack of posting. If you post 2 times a month I tend to forget who you are. You don't have to post daily but 1-2 times a week helps keep your story fresh.

5) Spelling, punctuation and grammar. No, a blog does not have to be perfect, but please try to use full words and spell correctly. There is a spell check for this very purpose. And capitalize the first letter in the sentence. This helps it not to all run together.

6) Paragraphs, people, please!! When you post a paragraph that is pages long it all tends to blur. Break it up into more than one paragraph. This is a appealing to the eye and keeps us from thinking that we will be there all day trying to read your post.

None of these are directed at any one specific blog. More like an a accumulative list that I have been thinking about for some time. If you have one to add, leave it in a comment! If you see something on my blog that could be improved, please tell me!!!! I promise not to get angry. I might block ya, though! ;-)