My Dream Blogger

I love finding new blogs. I love it. Especially ones written really well, by other people similar to me, or living similar lives as me (aka: other twenty-something, newlywed mormon girls). Confession: whenever I'm bored of my blog roll, I will go to your (yes, you reading this. probably) profile page on Bloglovin' and look at the blogs you follow, and try some of them out.

The first thing I do when I go to a new blog is look at it (yes. i completely judge it by it's cover). Is it cute? Is it easy to navigate? Yes: continue. No: skim it a little to see if it's worth the trouble (usually not). Next, I will look for a picture of the blogger. I will go to the about page, and read it entirely. I will go to any other similar pages (the love story / how they met pages, FAQ pages, etc). And then I will scroll and skim for awhile before actually deciding to read.

I did this with 3 new blogs today. All 3 passed the test. But I noticed that there are specific things I look for, that I think all blogs should have. So I give you: My Dream Blogger:

1. page design | the page should be very clean and easy to read. not too busy, not overdone. too many different fonts, or hard to read fonts always turn me away. i want it to be bright and pretty.

2. a photo of your face | i want to see what you look like. i want a picture right there in the side bar. I don't need a mug shot. I don't need a head shot. I just want to be able to tell what you look like. If it's not on the sidebar, I will look at the about page, and if it's not there, well that's strike one.

3. i want to know who you are | about pages matter. i love reading weird, quirky things about people, that aren't really relevant. include some of those, but also include actual things. i want to know how old you are. i want to know where you live (i mean all of this in the least creepy stalker way possible. i just need generals.) i want to know what you blog about. i want to know what you do for work, what your husband does, and how old he is. i want to know how long you've been married. i don't care if you're general, or specific, but i want those details. i want to feel like i know you. i want to feel like we were just assigned to introduce ourselves to each other on the first day of school in your English class, freshman year of college.

4. i want you to include an archives option, because i will probably want to read the first post you ever wrote.

5. i want you to talk about your actual life. not just post recipes, product reviews, and host giveaways (don't do a lot of giveaways. i follow blogs to read them, not to get junk mail and a chance to win something.)

6. i want all of your buttons linking to other things or pages or websites to actually work. don't publish your "about me" page if you haven't put any content in there yet. major letdown.

7. i want you to post lots of pictures. big ones. hit that "xlarge" button in the post draft. why wouldn't you? i want your pictures to be decent. (no overuse of unnecessary flash, or super dark, or blurry photos. come on. you're a blogger. you're practically a professional photographer just because of it, right?! show me!)