Even those of us who have been around the WoW blogosphere for a long time are guilty of all of these things from time to time – they’re not concepts exclusive to folks new to blogging, but understanding why readers are skipping your posts can help you learn and grow not only as a writer, but as a player as well, pushing you to uncover new facets of the game and how you choose to share your experiences within it. Today, I’d like to spend time talking about why visitors or RSS subscribers may choose to skip the content you’ve worked so hard to produce.

Why do readers come to your blog?

Before you can understand why readers may skip some of your posts, you have to understand why they’ve come to your blog in the first place. Readers come to blogs for a variety of reasons, but the basic principles are the same:

• To be entertained
• To be educated

These are the two primary reasons why readers visit blogs. While the details are as varied as the readers themselves, these two basic ideas are the foundation upon which blog readership is built. By publishing a blog that you want people to read consistently, you make a promise to your readers to either entertain them or educate them about something. If you’re not delivering on one of these two promises with every single post, your content will get skipped. It’s really that simple, and it’s true for all blogs, not just WoW blogs.

What makes WoW blogs unique?

Where WoW blogs differ from other blogs is that, while we’re all focusing on the same niche in the blogging market – gaming, specifically in World of Warcraft – each of us can bring something unique to the table while still sharing a common understanding with our readers because they’re consistently experiencing the same game content, atmosphere and community that we are.

Each of us has common ground upon which to meet our readers and fellow bloggers, so there’s a certain level of understanding inherent in what we’re doing here. However, that common ground can also be a stumbling block for many new bloggers starting out: what sets you apart from every other WoW blog out there? It’s easy to spend five minutes and set up a free blog to talk about your characters, anyone can do that. So why would a reader want to come to your site?

Let’s spend some time talking about reasons why readers may find your content a bit bland.

1. No One Cares Which Boss You Downed Last Night

Unless you’re posting a boss kill to help illustrate a greater point (such as strategy, tricks, class tips, etc), no one’s going to care that you downed a boss last night, or the night before, or any other night, no matter how long it took you and your group to finally do it.

Sure, you’ll get a few comments from your core fan base saying “Grats!”, but these people are only interested because they’re interested in you as a person and your accomplishments. The average reader, particularly readers that are visiting your site for the first time, have no vested personal interest in you or your accomplishments in-game, and could frankly care less who you killed. They’re coming to your site for information or entertainment, so unless you seriously punch-up that kill post with some heavy entertainment value, no one’s going to read that post.

2. No One Cares What Dropped

Following the boss kill posts, no one gives a flip which bosses dropped what for your group/guild, either. Save that stuff for your guild’s web site, where the target audience is actually looking for precisely that kind of information. If visitors to your personal blog want to know how your guild is doing, they’ll follow a link right to your guild’s web site.

If you need to talk about loot drops, do so from a “this is what you should have” or “this is better for this spec than another item because” standpoint. Readers are interested in loot, just not yours. The only loot posts you should have on your site should be item comparisons or gear guides. That’s it.

3. Game News Posts

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you’re not MMO-Champion and you’re not WoW Insider. As such, any game news you choose to post will have already “broken”, so to speak. Unless your primary purpose is not to discuss game news itself, but rather to share your thoughts, opinions and reactions to breaking game news, people will have already read whatever it is you decide to post and will find your redundancy pointless at best and annoying at worst.

If you simply cannot resist the urge to post game news, then at least have the courtesy to share something unique along with it. Give your thoughts and opinions about the news, link to other discussions related to the topic, postulate on how that news will affect you, your friends and the community as a whole. Bring something of you to the table, your readers will appreciate it.

4. Memes

Yes, memes are extremely fun to participate in and it draws blog authors closer to each other and promotes a feeling of a joint and robust community. However, our readers aren’t as familiar with the “faces” behind the blogs as we are and they frankly don’t want to be. They want their information or entertainment, and that’s it. Stop posting memes on your blog! Readers don’t care about them. The only benefit to posting a meme on your blog is to share links to related sites with your readers, and that can be done much more effectively and meaningfully through other techniques.

If you enjoy the camaraderie of memes, participate in them where they blog: on a blog author community and stop cluttering up your visitors’ feed readers with them.

5. Wall of Text Crits for Over 9000

First, you need to understand something very important: no one reads every word on a web site. Ever. Ever, ever. Not even in Bizarro World. Case in point: have you read every single word of this post? Or did you skip around to the headings and bolded sentences? That’s what I thought.

Content for the web is designed specifically for people with the attention spans of toddlers. Why? Because people want what they want when they want it, and if they can’t find it quickly and easily, they’ll move on to the next source without a backwards glance. Content on the web is far too easily accessible for people to spend more than just a few seconds looking for information on a single web site. Your site is no exception, pal, sorry.

When developing your site’s content, you need to keep this in mind: if it takes more than 10 seconds to find it, your visitors aren’t reading it. It’s as simple as that. However, there are ways to entice your readers to stay longer to read what you have to say:

• Headings
• Text formatting
• Images

These three things capture attention and hold it – especially if they’re implemented with your readers’ desires in mind. Break up those big walls of text in your posts with these three things to help keep your readers engaged. But don’t just throw them in willy-nilly, make sure they’re relevant to what your article is talking about and enrich your content rather than distract from it.

6. Enough With the Apologies

Folks that follow your blog already know you haven’t updated it in seven months, they don’t need to be told. And furthermore, they don’t care why you haven’t updated in a while. They don’t want to hear about how your cat came down with a case of the mumps or how your in-laws came for an extended visit that turned into them moving into your basement for six months. No one cares!

Readers haven’t been coming to your blog to hear about how you just redid the living room, they’ve been coming to your blog to hear about your adventures in a video game we all play. Skip the excuses and get back to the quality content your readers have come to expect from you.

7. Stop Being a Pussy, Get Passionate About Something

Some of the most popular posts I’ve ever written were off-the-cuff rants about something that happened to me, either in-game or out in the larger WoW community. I was in the habit of being relatively emotionally detached from many of the subjects I wrote about, but every so often I would feel so strongly about something that had happened that I couldn’t not vent my emotions. I had to write about them. You know what happened?

Those posts gave my readers a chance to catch a glimpse of the real me, it gave them a chance to share similar experiences that they had struggled with, it gave them a chance to connect on a very real level with other players and it gave them an opportunity to build a safe place for them to vent their own frustrations. Those rant posts were, by far, the most commented-on and visited posts I’ve ever written.

Now, the moral of the story here is not to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation just to generate a few extra comments or controversy. The point is to have the courage to share a part of yourself with your readers and open them up to building a rapport with you. Give readers a chance to say, “Hey, me too!” or “No, I think you’re wrong.” in a constructive way, and everyone takes something away from the discussion.

Stop worrying so much about pleasing everyone all the time, or making sure everyone likes you. Sooner or later, you’re going to piss people off, you’re going to offend someone, you’re going to have readers run screaming. It will happen. Don’t fear it, embrace it and learn from it.

8. Pay Attention to Your Readers

Your readers will gladly tell you what they want, in no uncertain terms, either directly through comments or contact forms on your site, or through search terms they used to find your site. If you’re stuck for a topic, check out what your visitors are trying to learn from you for ideas. Take requests, answer emails, or share with your readers the topics you’ve been struggling with yourself and want to understand better. Give your readers a chance to educate you for a change.

While your readers may expect you to have all the answers, the simple truth is that you don’t and can’t. You’re going to get things wrong from time to time, and it’s best to handle that fact with poise and grace. Acknowledge your readers’ ideas, and even highlight them in posts of their own. Paying special attention to the readers that take the time to engage you in discussion demonstrates that you value your readers and their opinions, and encourages others to take part in the discussion as well.

9. Repeat Content

There are so many WoW blogs out there that it’s almost impossible to talk about something that hasn’t already been “done to death” by several others. You need to keep in mind, though, that your readers probably don’t just subscribe to your site, but several others as well – all or most of which are likely in the same sub-niche. As such, repeating content posted elsewhere is boring and redundant for your readers.

If a topic is big enough or important enough, you can “re-post” it. Just be very careful about how you do it. Don’t simply link to a post on another site and say “Well, I was going to talk about this, but they already did, so go see their post.” You’re an individual with your own thoughts and feelings. The likelihood that the other author perfectly captured your thoughts on a specific subject, particularly without consulting you first, are astronomical. Add your own personal flair to the topic. Where does your opinion or experience differ from the other authors’? What would you have done differently? How will the topic impact you specifically, and what do you think it will mean for the community?

10. Site Design

I understand that not everyone can have a background in web development or graphic design; however, your blog’s design is the first thing new visitors notice and the impression that makes is important. Even if you’re using a free service and site template, take the time to personalize it. If you’re using an especially popular theme, this is even more important. You need to do something to visually set yourself apart so that visitors will remember you and want to return.

It’s important to remember, though, that just slapping a few character signatures or armory links isn’t going to cut it. They’re usually ugly and visually unappealing. If you’re not good at working with graphics, ask for help from someone who is. There are plenty of folks in the WoW blogging community that are very good at working with graphics, and many of them would love to help you – you just need to take the time to ask them. (And they’d likely show you some link love in the process, wanting to show off their handy work.)

Think carefully about your site’s design and what it says about you as the site’s owner. Is it obvious you’ve put thought and effort into how your site looks and functions? Remember: good design isn’t just about making things pretty; it’s about making them functional as well.

How can you improve your blogging?

Now, for many of us, this whole blogging business is just about sharing our experiences with others. However, you can satisfy your urge to share and write while still taking the time to be the best blogger you can be. There are lots of great resources out there to help you be a better blogger. Here are some of my favorites:

• ProBlogger – the “blogging bible” for many of the big WoW bloggers out there
• Smashing Magazine – a great source for design and visual presentation inspirtation
• Blogging Tips – precisely what the name would suggest
• Write to Done – tips for developing more engaging content for the web
• Six Revisions – more great visual and graphic design tips and resources

There are so many great resources to help make us better writers, designers and bloggers out there that it would be impossible to list them all, but these few will give you a great head start. Be sure to check through the archives of each, as there are tons of older articles on each site that are “must read”s for every novice and experienced blogger alike.

Good luck, and happy blogging!

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