Business Blog Web Design Mistakes

With more companies adopting blogs, it’s no surprise Jakob Nielsen looks at the top ten blog usability design mistakes. Author biographies and photos should be a given for any business Web site as it lets people know there are humans behind the company. This is not limited to blogs. However, if the blogger doesn’t have an About reference for whatever reason, then yes — add one.
Headlines. I’m frustrated with them. I like to get creative… but creative can affect search engine keyword opportunities. The important thing is that readers have a hint of what the post is about. Links… well, I try to figure out where they go by relying on the status bar, but sometimes that doesn’t help. I’ve heard experts say to use “click here” to help those who are newer to the Web and you know many say that’s wrong, wrong, wrong. It just depends on the content. When I link, I try to pick the best words that give you an idea of what to expect.
Calendar and archives — completely agree. This is the biggest problem I have with most blogs. I almost always resort to search when I want to find postings no longer on the home page. Unfortunately, some blogs don’t have search. That’s why I put “archive” links in my sidebar in both meryl’s notes and meryl’s notes features. As my site goes through redesign (getting panicky because I don’t know how easy or hard it’ll be to implement it with a CMS and keep it updated), I’m making sure the archives are accessible especially in the features section. I found some old entries from 2001 that are still relevant today.
Bloggers must be regular. No bathroom jokes here, please. 🙂 When a blog looks abandoned for a month… your audience is gone. They’ll take you off their feed reader and blogroll. If you plan not to do it again or take a long sabbatical… prepare to start over again when you return.
Mixing topics. Eh… too complicated to argue here, but I wouldn’t call it a top ten mistake. Agree wholeheartedly that you should blog with a boss in mind. Will your boss (current and future) be offended by your posting? Blogs could cost job offers… not just their current job. It wouldn’t surprise me if managers are Googling applicants while going through the interview process.
Last item. Having a typepad.com or blogspot.com equates to having a yahoo.com or aol.com email address? Some of the bigwigs use Blogspot or Typepad URLs. Guess what? I never remember their URLs. I have to rely on Google. So this makes sense, BUT I wouldn’t call it unprofessional. That’s going too far. No surprise, right?
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about business blogging as I find it a fascinating subject since it’s a new arena. Here are great resources for info on this: Debby Weil, Steve Rubel, Business Blog Consulting, and many more for which you can see from the Google results. Ah, gosh darn it… blogging is a topic I wouldn’t mind talking about a majority of the time in my blog… but we already have super bloggers on the topic. No sense in trying to get in now.