Tip to young bloggers: How to look professional ?

The problem when you are an young blogger is that, you fiddle around with a lot of things, crash burn and bruise sometimes, and you end up being in a very bad shape for a long time until someone tells you to change it all, for the good.

Be a professional, it’s been long time since you started isn’t it? You still looks ugly.

There is nothing wrong, everybody started young and we all had our lessons. What matters is how quick you learn from your mistakes. So today am going to give some “advice” to young bloggers on how to look professional with your blog?

Our aim is that, no matter how young you are, no one should “read” from your blog that you are a newbie and you are trying out things. They should treat you as good as a professional.

1. The Looks
   As you might have rightly guessed, the looks matters most. The biggest clue that you are a newbie is your template. Young bloggers either have the default blogger/wordpress template or a totally screwed up template.
   My suggestion is that you change your template to a much professional looking one and leave away all the fancies.
2. The gadgets
   Please rip off all those stupid buttons on your right hand side. It is an instant signal that you are a newbie. You fancy those a loot, but seriously none other than your family would be interested in them.
   I’m talking about those “My blog is worth 10 million dollars” like widgets. They simply makes no sense.
3. The awards
   The biggest award in blogging is your traffic. Apart from it, I really don’t think you should show off anything else. And there are bloggers who fancy displaying awards like “The best blogger in the most humorous technical marketing category”. Huh?? Just sit back and think, who else would be interested in those kind of stuff? There is no problem in displaying awards given by authorities, like the bloggers choice award, but make sure that you don;t have any flimsy looking award badge on your blog, it simply rips apart your image.
4. The directories
   I’ve found some interesting blogs that fancy showing off all their directory listings. In fact, they were forced to put these badges if they wanted a directory listing.
   If you look around, the maximum number of directory listings will be for the young bloggers. Young bloggers are under the impression that if they need to be well known, better get listed in a directory. So they go around hunting all the “mushroom” directories and apply for a listing. Many a times, these directories suggest at the end of application process, to display their badges on your site. Newbie bloggers very happily copy the HTML code to the template.
   Nobody actually checks back as to whether they directory have actually listed them or not. In case of rejections, you don’t really need to link back to them. But this doesn’t happen and the badges accumulate with each submission making your sidebar ugly.
   So please cut down on those badges, keep only one badge if you are really keen on it. One which is a real authority.
5. The Ads
   Please make it a point to place your ads properly. Any ad that is jutting out or totally obscuring the reading experience is un professional. In the hurry to earn more money online, young bloggers gather up all possible affiliate ads and put them on the templates all over the place.At one point of time, it looks ugly and the user experience is dragged to a flat line. Never let this happen.
   Be creative with your ads and place them keeping the user experience in mind. Cut down those ads which are giving you the less returns while keeping those that gives you maximum returns.
6. Chat/Shoutboxes
   These guys are really a waste of space. I mean just think about it, at any time, I can give you 10 better options to chat , then why would anyone prefer chatting on your blog? A blog is supposed to be a place where visitors get to read information on a subject. It’s not a forum or a chat room.

I trust readers who are professional bloggers can contribute to this topic much. Please chip in your suggestions here so that it’ll be of help to young bloggers.