The 6 Most Annoying Types of Blogs

Earlier this week, I received a lovely notification from WordPress that sereneluna.net turned 6 years old! 🥳 Admittedly, I didn’t do much with my blog until Spring 2019 and at that time, I had approx. 20 followers. Since having a quarter-life crisis in Spring 2019, I started taking blogging more seriously. It didn’t take long to realize that writing is a therapeutic outlet for me. I know that I am still a newbie blogger, but it feels really good to have people that are interested in my writing. I’m so grateful that anyone reads my blog, and I really hope that my follower count continues to grow! 🌻🌻

What Makes a Blog Annoying?

If you have been blogging for a while, you’ll know that blogging can be hard work. The worst part about blogging is that there is always a risk of your content being ignored. You’re constantly coming up with different ideas to create compelling and high-quality content for your audience. Despite all of your hard work, there is no way to know for sure if you are doing the right thing. The worst part about blogging is that it’s not easy to keep your readers engaged. However, there are some things you can do to make sure your blog posts are not too annoying. Below ↓ I want to show you 6 types of blogging styles to avoid which can be annoying for your readers. Please note that the following list is in no particular order. Let’s get started, shall we?

The 6 Most Annoying Types of Blogs

1. Blogs with no images. A blog without pictures is not engaging for the reader. Adding photos helps increase readability and breaks up the text, so go ahead and add some pictures! Increased readability may be due in part because readers don’t need to read as much text, which is often more difficult and time-consuming than looking at a picture. It’s also possible that readers are better able to remember the information shown in pictures than those seen only in text.

2. Blogs that are poorly written. Sadly, poorly written blogs are a problem that is not going away. The problem is not just the content but also the formatting and organization of the blog. It is not surprising that a poorly written blog is more likely to have lower engagement rates and fewer shares across social media platforms. As a result, this can lead to less traffic and less visibility in search engines. Okay, so how do you spot a poorly written blog? For starters, poorly written blogs usually contain a lot of spelling and grammatical errors, which can make the blog difficult to read and ultimately discourage readers from returning.

3. Blogs with no information about the blogger. Bloggers who do not have an “About” section can be sort of mysterious. It’s clear who’s behind the text that was posted, but one can’t help wondering about their motivations for doing so. These blogs might be interesting in some ways, but they will not have a built-in audience, Furthermore, these bloggers may end up having more difficulty getting their posts shared. Blogs with an “About” section are better for building an audience, attracting more followers, and reaching more readers.

4. Blogs that lack original content. There is a trend in social media to share blog posts that have been written by other people. This is being done for many reasons, but most commonly it is to build traffic for the author of the post and/or to share a person’s opinion on a topic. The problem with this practice is that it discourages original content from being created and shared, which could have consequences for the blogger down the line. Personally, I have unfollowed bloggers who do this because I think it is a lazy and unnecessary practice.

5. Blogs that are written like a diary. This blog is usually just a list of random things that this blogger has done during their day or week, such as what they ate for breakfast or what they watched on TV last night. This type of blog is not helpful to anyone and honesty, nobody cares that you had chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone and your boyfriend had vanilla frozen yogurt. Please keep in mind that your audience is not limited to yourself. I follow a few bloggers who write a lot of diary-style blog posts, but it doesn’t bother me because these bloggers have been blogging for years and I know what to expect from their work.

6. Blogs with too many ads. Bloggers who create blogs that have too many ads in them are trying to make money off of the people who visit their blogs. This can be annoying for other bloggers because a lot of advertisers are targeting these types of blogs, which could mean having to scroll through the endless amounts ads just to see what their original point was. A lot of bloggers who create blogs with too many ads in them are trying to make money by posting the “sponsored content” that they are given by their advertisers or sponsors. Some bloggers or non-bloggers might feel this way because they believe these blogs are being made for the purpose of making money.

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ FINAL THOUGHTS ♥

Whether you are just starting to blog or you have been blogging for a while, it can be a daunting task to come up with fresh and engaging content. If you want to have a successful blog, don’t let these 6 common blogger mistakes get in your way. Sure, I could be a bit too cynical, but I hope that you enjoyed reading this blog post nonetheless. If this blog post taught you something or made you think about the way you go about blogging differently, feel free to join the conversation by leaving a comment below ↓ I will try to reply to your comments during my free time.

Thanks for stopping by! ♥

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Published by Hilary Tan

I am currently in the process of finding my inner goddess as I search for inner peace, find mental clarity, develop mental toughness, and crush goals. Come join me on this journey so we can live our best lives!

70 thoughts on “The 6 Most Annoying Types of Blogs”

    • Hilary Tan says:

      It’s all good, Rochelle! Your ads don’t annoy me at all. Tbh I have been following your site for a while now so I don’t notice the ads. It’s usually newer blogs I see that go a little ad crazy, which annoy me more than anything, or when bloggers try too hard to make a sale.

      Like

  2. Monch Weller says:

    Seconding your thoughts from Nos. 1 to 6! Permit me to share my two cents.

    No. 2: While people make grammar mistakes now and then, shoddy work from the onset is a different issue. Proper spelling, grammar and formatting makes a big difference — and the first two aren’t just limited to academic papers!

    No. 3: I could definitely imagine that, having been in a similar situation! Years ago, I was at a conference — and networking came with such events. I had a hard time doing so since I didn’t have a business card with me during that instance. I could imagine those without an About section that introduces themselves being in the same predicament.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Happy Panda says:

    Happy Blog-versery!!! Here’s to many more. ❤️
    I hate blogs with pop-up ads. I immediately lose interest in reading their blog. 🙈
    I also don’t like blogs that are very long and not properly divided into sections. I lose interest while reading one long para.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Hilary Tan says:

      Thank you!!💕I usually don’t bother sharing my site’s blogversary but I couldn’t help but think, “Wow! Has it really been 6 years already?” Also, I happened to create this blog on my mom’s birthday which is pretty random. WP reminds me every year in case I forget. 😂

      Ugh, pop-up ads are terrible aren’t they? I find third-party sites the worst offenders for pop-up ads. And same – I think that’s also why I like photos because it breaks up the sections. Tbh I’m guilty of longer paragraphs so I try to add photos to make it easier to read 👀

      Like

  5. Ashley L. Peterson says:

    Happy blogiversary!

    I tend to unfollow blogs that have too much sponsored content. I’m totally okay with bloggers trying to make an income, but if 75% of the overall content is sponsored, I’m most likely going to unfollow.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Hilary Tan says:

      I still follow a few blogs that post wayyyy too many AD-related and sponsored blog posts, but I can’t unfollow them because they’re my “blogging friends.” Several times I’ve been tempted to unfollow but I just can’t do it.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Hilary Tan says:

      Hey, at least you’re doing something productive and writing novels! 🙌 That takes even more motivation and discipline I think. Writing can be a grind sometimes… I get it. There’s been times where I’ve gone several weeks without posting anything. Thank you for reading and commenting! 😊💕

      Liked by 1 person

    • Hilary Tan says:

      When bloggers are feeling unmotivated about putting together my own post, it’s tempting to just re-post the articles of others. It doesn’t require any creativity to do this, but to me, it feels like a cop-out.

      Liked by 1 person

  9. ZeroSpace says:

    I used to be concerned about all of this back when I did “real writing”. Then I started writing for myself. Nowadays I break over half these rules and I am sure my blog is pretty annoying to anyone who does not already have a blogger friend bond with me. For people who want to grow an audience and are not business owners, ask yourself this: why do you want your blog to get attention in the first place? What is the end game? Back when I did music journalism, I think my answer to that question was wanting to share my inspiration with other rock music fans. Soon enough I learned that wordpress is the worst forum for music writing and that I would be better off finding other music people via meetup.com and sources like that. WordPress is the wrong forum for a lot of people that want their writing to get attention, I think. It’s better suited for people who journal and do some of these annoying things. In other words people who write for themselves.

    Liked by 3 people

      • ZeroSpace says:

        Like if someone stumbles across my guide for dealing with anxiety and it helps them, great. But I no longer check stats and wish to get more followers. I think that unless somebody owns a business and is monetizing, a lot of them have not stopped to say, “why do I want this attention and how might I get this need met in real life?”

        Liked by 2 people

      • Hilary Tan says:

        I wish I could stop checking the damn stats and enjoy blogging for what it is, but then I play the comparison game and get caught up in the numbers. Then I seem to forget how I got here in the first place, and what my purpose is. My main intention isn’t to monetize, but it would be nice to find a way for this blog to pay for itself or at least cover the annual fees. I don’t think I’m totally crazy for believing that this dream is possible.

        Liked by 1 person

      • ZeroSpace says:

        You’re not crazy. People have different aims for different reasons. My wish is to abandon my blog entirely. God I wish I could. But I use it as an eating disorder tool to get food down. I’m bitter about this crutch and have come to despise the blog because it’s my ball and chain. And so you see – maybe that is the tone the underlies the response post I did yesterday. I tore other bloggers apart when in reality it’s because I am trapped in the blog for eating. All of this shows that we all have our different purposes and are coming from different places. And there is nothing wrong with that. I am glad that for your aims you found a place where engagement is super high for you.

        Like

    • Hilary Tan says:

      I think we are opposites. I started writing for myself and ended up writing more for an audience. Engagement is pretty good on WP and I have had more luck here than on all of my other social media platforms combined. I figured that if I was going to write for myself, I might as well use a diary. But what good is it if I can’t share my ideas with the world? So now I write for an audience; it didn’t start off this way and sort of evolved over the years. I have been following your blog for a while now so I get the blogger bond thing, and I enjoy reading your blog posts (as long as I am not getting like 6+ of them a day we’re good). LOL.

      I admit that I was super hesitant to write this blog post not knowing how people would react, but then I remembered to do it anyway and just go for it and see what happens. That’s truly unfortunate that WP isn’t a good platform for smaller, more refined niches. I am familiar with meetup.com and have used it to meet people, but it only seems to work well in larger cities where there’s civilization. I haven’t used it in ages though. Have you looked into Reddit? There might be a subreddit that caters specifically to like-minded people.

      Liked by 1 person

      • ZeroSpace says:

        I used to cross post in reddit. It definitely made my blog get bombed with visitors for about an hour. But it did not result in new or loyal followers. Which was an interesting lesson. I have a fairly high follow count (in my opinion, like 300 or something) which took years to gain and it was all from inside wordpress. However, when I post something new I average about 10 to 15 views. Tells you right there most of those 300 are not actual followers and I imagine it’s the same with other blogs. Anyway, strategizing on this does not concern me because I have no desire to grow my blog. I am at a place where I want to actualize my life and find a tribe, maybe write creatively once every 3 months and post something good for current followers, etc. It’s interesting that we started out in an opposite way 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

      • Hilary Tan says:

        There’s a high chance that your followers may have abandoned their blogs or quit. I recently went through the blogs I was following, and to my surprise, there were over 70 out of the 510 blogs I was following who had either abandoned their blogs or retired them altogether. So if you aren’t getting a lot of visitors, it could be that your followers aren’t active anymore.

        Another thing you could try to get more visitors is by adding relevant tags. I always add 6-7 tags to each of my blogs so that non-followers will hopefully stumble upon them. Hope that helps! If you have no desire to grow your blog following, then the number of followers you have shouldn’t be much of a concern.

        Liked by 1 person

  11. Angie Soul says:

    Happy 6 years to your blog! That is quite an accomplishment in itself! I wholeheartedly feel when you said that you had a quarter life crisis which caused you to put your blog in the background for a while. This has honestly happened to me several times. #5 on the list is on point and made me laugh. I definitely don’t care about chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone unless you’re able to physically share lol. Thank you for sharing!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hilary Tan says:

      Thank you for your kind wishes! It’s so nice of you to come by, I know my response is way overdue but I love connecting with readers. Just wanted to say that I’m glad this post gave you a chuckle – that was my intention! 😅

      Like

  13. Poorwa Vishwakarma says:

    Happy blogiversary!!!
    I agree with all your points here. I also think it’s very important to have an About page on your blog.
    Plus, I find it very annoying when there are too many emojis or strikethrough in a post, I’m not against using emojis but when they’re used too much in a post… it’s so distracting.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Devang Upadhyaya says:

      Too many emojis break a flow. Emojis are good to express, but too many makes it annoying. Also, I know many bloggers, who try to be funny but they can’t reflect exact emotions and that makes the blog boring.

      Liked by 2 people

    • Hilary Tan says:

      @Poorwa Thank you very much! I am happy that this blog post resonated with you. Yes, having an About section is often something that people think is not important, but it really makes a blog more credible. I have edited my “About” section at least 10 times over the years since it is constantly evolving. 😅

      Tbh I am guilty of using emojis. I try not to overdo it too much with the emojis because it is easy to get carried away with them! LOL

      Liked by 1 person

    • Hilary Tan says:

      Thank you for your kind words! ❤ It’s so nice of you to visit, I know my response is way overdue but I love connecting with readers. I am happy that this blog post resonated with you. I checked out your blog and I love how aesthetically pleasing it is. I gave you a follow and look forward to reading more of your blog posts. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  16. Devang Upadhyaya says:

    First of all congratulations on completing 6 years, let’s now aim for 16 years.
    Secondly, a great pic of doggo
    Third and most importantly, I like this blog, it’s very informative and fun to read.
    I would like to share what annoys me, I strongly dislike blogger that post blogs and disappears, like they don’t want to interact with the readers, they are posting regularly, but never care to talk.
    Also, I don’t like random bloggers such people posts anything and everything, what they think is funny, might not be the case for others, they are not putting life to their blogs. Their blogs are just uploaded for views, but it lacks connection.
    Third, blogs which has no direction. I don’t want to brag or something, but I write about health and wellness and people now know that I will talk about it, but some blogs are direction less, they sometimes talk about poem,sometime about health, sometimes about books. First time viewer will never get idea what to expect and it take away the reason from reader to return back.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hilary Tan says:

      Thanks for all of your support these years and I hope you continue to stick around! My plan is to move hosting sites in November, but I’ll have the site back up and running as soon as possible. I still have time to make a final decision.

      Hmm, do you mean bloggers who disappear without telling anyone? Because that annoys me too 🙄 Another thing I don’t like is when bloggers post new content, only to delete it hours later. I want to interact with them, only to get an “error” message telling me that the blog post no longer exists. I believe that in this case, these bloggers would be better off having a private blog. Still, I understand that people crave human connection and therefore, choose to stay public.

      I recently had a blogger (now an ex-friend) tell me that I was “the most hypercritical blogger ever” because according to her, I don’t follow my own advice. According to my disclaimers, this blog is based on MY opinions and experiences and while it might not apply to other people, it might give them beneficial insight. My blog only reflects a sliver of my identity, but I attempt to make them as similar as possible.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Hilary Tan says:

      Thank you, I tried to compile a list that could easily be implemented. Easy pitfalls that can be avoided. I am guilty of making these mistakes myself, but always learning.

      Like

  18. hellosamanthadear says:

    Congratulations on your blogging milestone!!! 🎉 This is a really fascinating post; I definitely recognize some of these kinds of blogs you listed that I come across, and admittedly I know I fall into the annoying diary-style blogging category. 😂 I figured that out over the years seeing how few likes I get, but I mainly blog just to give myself something fun to do. Sometimes I try to be more vulnerable and insightful in my posts but I fall flat and revert to being light-hearted and comical. I admire blogs like yours that are not only insightful into your life, but also informative!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hilary Tan says:

      Thank you, Samantha! I didn’t do much with my blog until Spring of 2019 when my mental health was really suffering. I started writing to make sense of everything and never stopped writing ✍ I really enjoy reading your blog posts and being able to learn more about you. The way that you share your thoughts on a variety of topics as well as creativity is something I find inspiring. 💁‍♀️

      Given that this particular blog post IS a Listicle, even these types of blogs can get annoying. I try to keep Listicles to a minimum nowadays, and I want to focus less on structured blog-posts, and more on free-form. Thank you so much, that’s exactly what I was going for!!

      Like

    • Hilary Tan says:

      Thank you for your kind words @thegrumpyolive! ❤ It’s so nice of you to visit my little corner of the internet. I know my response is way overdue but I love connecting with readers. I follow you on Twitter which is where I’ve seen most of your latest blog posts. I don’t know how you do it but the recipes and photos are incredible!

      Like

    • Hilary Tan says:

      Nice to meet you, Janera! 😊 Yes, ads are annoying aren’t they? That’s a good point – Even if a blog doesn’t have an about section, if their content is good, that’s what really matters. I would hope that they still have a way to connect, whether it’s email or social media. 💻🙋‍♀️

      Like

  23. Everyday Minds Matter says:

    Thanks for sharing.. 🦋 love the advice. Most of all the “ads” are annoying. For myself I am a content writer and reader. Nothing more annoying than trying to read something interesting, and have to fight the ads. Almost like sitting at the park & shooing away flies. (From A sticky ice cream nearby) unable to enjoy, unpleasant when yiu just wanted to have a peaceful day. 🦋 thanks keep on keeping you happy.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hilary Tan says:

      I’ve never posted ads on my blog for that very reason. I don’t get much traffic, and I wouldn’t want to scare away the readers who do read my blog. Thanks for your feedback on the ice cream and fly analogy….yes, it’s just like that. 😁🍦

      Like

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