Too Many Widgets Make a Bad Blog

That's just my opinion. There are alot of bloggers out there that have the Adsense program, and to drive traffic, they'll submit their blogs to ALOT of blog directories. That's fine. It's just that plus all the widgets they use that, to me, make a uninteresting blog.

I say this because I've seen alot of blogs out there, and for some reason they all look the same. Most have the Feedjit widget, they have the Recent Visitors widget, they have a huge list of blog directories, and every nook and cranny is filled with ads.

I'm not a professional blogger. But as a reader, I like to be able to read your content before the next full moon. My laptop is not that fast, so if you have a million things going on for your blog, it takes awhile for it to load. If it does take too long to load, I usually hit the back button to find another blog to look at.

Ok, this is a sample of what I do when I run into one of these blogs. I go to the site, wait a couple seconds for the top part to load, and I start scrolling down to read the content. I actually don't pay any attention to the sidebars. Sometimes I read the content when all of a sudden, a context link appears (the kind from Kontera, with the double underlining). So I try to scroll down some more, but the page is laggy. Finally I say "fuggetaboutit" and I go back to the site where I found the blog to pick another. Here's an example of a blog with too much stuff: http://www.myadsense-gold.blogspot.com/. I'm sure he won't mind, since he hasn't made a new post since January (not criticizing his blog...well maybe xD).

So here's a tip from an amateur blogger to getting return visitors: Don't cram your sidebars with flashy widgets, as this may deter visitors from actually reading your content. I've seen blogs with two or three widgets that do the same thing, like the recent visitors and stat counter widgets. Try to stick to one -- that's all you really need. As for the Adsense, try not to stick em in every nook and cranny of your blog. A few well placed ads will be as efficient, if not more so.

In my opinion, when it comes to blogging, less is more.