5 Reasons I’m Breaking Up With Your RSS Feed

Dear Bloggers,

It started out great. You were there for me when I needed you. You provided me with experiences so memorable and fun… but I’m sorry… this just isn’t going to work… I thought this little list might help you out in your next RSS relationship.

1. You have your blog setup to publish every one line twitter thing you put out. If I subscribe to your blog it’s usually because at one point you had a few posts of value and I was hoping there would be more. I don’t want to see 42 @whomever messages in my RSS reader everyday for things I won’t get, don’t care about and aren’t related to that topic.
   • How to fix: STOP PUBLISHING YOUR TWITTER FEED ON YOUR BLOG’S RSS!!!!
2. Bad grammar and consistent spelling flaws. I’m no angel here- typos happen. Likewise I’d never claim to have the best grammar nor do I always spell things correctly. I mean bloggers (well, most) are only human. But when every post has spelling mistakes, or you don’t capitalize the first word of a sentence or pronouns, etc… that makes me completely turned off to your blogging.
   • How to fix: It won’t take too much of your time to do a quick spell check (heck, Firefox will do that right for you and you can just right-click on the red underlined words to find a suggestion for the correct spelling!). Copy and paste into MS Word (or the free alternative OpenOffice) and spell and grammar check from there. Slow down when you write and read it out loud it when you think you’re done. Then step away for 30 minutes or so, reread again THEN publish.
3. You consistently go off topic. Listen, a few posts here and there when something is on your mind is makes no difference to me, I’ll either read through it or mark it as read without another glance. But, if your blog is called “SpongeBob Heaven” and your tagline is “Completely Spongebob 365″, and every day your posts have NOTHING to do with SpongeBob, I’m gone.
   • How to fix: Stop posting off topic. You want to recap your bar trip last night, your new car and the soft quietness of snowfall? Start a personal blog or journal, but keep it off a site that is dedicated to one topic and one topic only.
4. Your posts are too short/too long. Ok, so this one isn’t that simple. It’s hard to find that “happy medium”. But if you constantly posting articles that are shorter than 2-3 well written paragraphs, I’m probably going to click that unsubscribe button hastily. The same goes for those who like to blather on and on and on when the same thing could have been said in 4-5 paragraphs.
• How to fix: Find your “happy medium”. If your a long-winded poster make sure you don’t go off on tangents. If you’re someone who posts short and quick, make sure there is enough meat in your post to keep my attention.
5. Your content just plain sucks. Sorry, but I’m sure we all had this happen to us before. We find a blog and we like one or two posts and hit subscribe. But, the content afterwards doesn’t suit our tastes for a variety of reasons. Things are hastily written without enough thought or time put in. The articles address interesting issues, but offer nothing different from the 3548000 other blogs chronicling the same thing. The writing style is flat, too serious, not serious enough, etc.
   • How to fix:Study the articles you write that do well. What did you do different those times compared to articles that aren’t performing as well. Did you use more images to accentuate your point? Did you offer another point of view that someone else hadn’t put out yet? Always remember quality is greater than quantity.

I’m really sorry it had to end this way. It was great while it lasted…

Love Always,
Lindsey