Hannah from Budding Smiles recently tagged me to share the things that bug me about blogs. You can read about her her top 10 blog peeves here. I've always loved reading blogs, even before I became a blogger myself. There are a handful of things that do induce a massive eye-roll from me when I see them though, so here they are.
1. Bloggers that blag. I love working with brands to review or feature their products and work really hard to do a good job of it. It's frustrating to see people tweeting directly at brands literally asking for stuff, or treating the #PRrequest tag like a shopping list rather than for what it is actually intended. I think it looks unprofessional and gives bloggers on the whole a bad rep.
2. Blogs with pop-ups everywhere. I don't mind the odd couple, but any more than that will annoy me and make me click away from a blog. I was reading a blog post yesterday where there were seven pop-ups. Every time I clicked one away another one came up. It was like the least fun game in the world. It was a recipe I wanted to use so I had no choice but keep clicking them away. I also hate the ones that fill your whole screen with an ad that you have to watch for however many seconds before it will allow you to click it away.
3. Bloggers that don't disclose. I don't know why people don't make it clear that they've been paid or given a sample or added an affiliate link or whatever. It's always really obvious so when it's not disclosed it just makes me question that blogger's integrity.
4. Stock images on reviews. If I have searched for a review, then I want to see real photos of the product. I think using stock images as well as your own is fine; some things are just difficult to photograph well. But only using stock images on a review isn't particularly helpful to readers. Which brings me on to...
5. Bloggers that copy and paste from brands. Like the previous point, I often see "reviews" where the blogger has pretty much copied and pasted the brand's own wording and then added something like "we love it!" at the end. How is this helpful to anyone looking for an opinion on the product? I could have just read that information on the brand's website.
6. Bloggers that write about social media growth but don't mention that they do a lot of "follow for follow" and "like for like" schemes. I've seen these blog posts a lot lately, with lists of things a blogger has done to grow their social media following but they rarely mention that take part in blog growth groups. Maybe it makes them look like more of a social media wizard if they omit that bit..?
7. Small photos. I'm too lazy to have to click to expand the photo, that extra click annoys me. Plus it just looks nicer when there are lovely big photos on a blog.
8. Italic or handwriting fonts throughout the whole of the post. They are really hard to read, especially as I mostly read on my phone or ipad.
9. Auto "thanks for following" messages. I would just rather not be thanked at all than have an impersonal automated message.
10. Bloggers that ask for retweets when I don't know them, have never been tweeted by them before and they don't even follow me. The cheek of some people, eh!
