Shelley sarcastically mentioned the other day that she "sucks at blogging" because of how she does a lot of the things Jakob Nielsen says are the Top Ten Design Mistakes in weblogs:

1. No Author Biographies
2. No Author Photo
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
4. Links Don't Say Where They Go
5. Classic Hits are Buried
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
8. Mixing Topics
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

Considering that I'm guilty of #3, #4, #7, #8 and #9, I suppose I'm not the one to pass categorical judgment. But I think it's important to note that these are recommendations for SEO, but not necessarily the key areas to which one should pay attention to have a successful weblog.

Re #2, well, I like pictures, sure, but it's hardly a requirement. I don't think many of the majorly successful bloggers post vanity shots, unless they're cute.

#4 can be important, especially in site navigation -- we don't want too much "mystery meat navigation," do we? But on the other hand, hyperlinks are really a form of parallel communication, kind of like the news tickers that run along the bottom of the cable TV news screens. Why not take advantage of this combination of text and hypertext and use it in our online written language? Or did I really need to type out "Wonkette" in the previous paragraph to avoid confusing you?

[Aside: There's no question that it pays to use keywords in your important links, though. Search engines love that. --Or at least they do today. Don't hold me to it next week.]

Likewise, #3 can be misplayed into dullness. Sometimes the snarky title is just what you need to position the post, and SEO be damned -- you're writing for your existing readers, too.

#6 is something I agree with, though. I hate calendar navigation. I'm interested in what you have to say, not when you said it.

Now when it comes to a busy working life that does not primarily focus around blogging, #7 can be a tricky one to avoid. But I think the warning is a bit overwrought. People will come to your site when they see you in search engines, Technorati, whatever. And unless you're disappearing for an extraordinarily long time, relatively speaking, your readers will find you when you return.

#8 is something I'm guilty of. I love to mix it up. Why? Because I have opinions, and that's what blogging is about -- expressing opinions. Well, it's one of the things, anyway. And while I can see that if you're writing about an entirely new topic every day, you're working against your best interests, site traffic-wise, there's a flip side to consider: Your odd post about Condoleezza Rice or Battlestar Galactica or the PTA meeting you attended last night could actually bring in some unexpected traffic, some of whom just may hang a bit and poke around to see what else you have.

As for #9 ... while it may be foolish to throw caution to the wind, I don't think it's healthy for anyone to live their online lives as if they're in a perpetual job interview. Already the imperative in this open world of interconnectivity is to say what you mean and do what you say. And I say that's good enough, most of the time. But it certainly would not do for a job interview. So just scratch that whole notion from your head.

Now if you've gotten this far in my already overlong post -- and I wonder why Jakob didn't mention article length? -- I offer Shelley's short and snarky response:

To find that I suck at weblogging. I post when I want, on what I want, do not have a photo, sometimes have an 'about me', and sometimes don't and I think we can safely say that I've lost employment opportunity because of what I write. More than once, most likely.

My titles are bizarre, I don't point out my 'hits', I rarely link to my old stories, and sometimes I use full names and sometimes I don't. I also don't use 'permalink' to mark same, and though I do have my own domain, I find Nielsen's comment, Having a weblog address ending in blogspot.com, typepad.com, etc. will soon be the equivalent of having an @aol.com email address or a Geocities website: the mark of a naive beginner who shouldn't be taken too seriously, to be elitist and foolish, considering that there are many, many weblogs on Blogspot much more popular than his.

And she has a strong point there -- especially that last part. Some of the biggest bloggers out there are posting on Blogger and Typepad.

Anyway, Shelley's wasn't the only response. The head lemur of raving lunacy puts it plain:

Jakob Nielson has risen from the dead. Jakob was talking about website usability a long time ago. He is one of those polarizing figures from the dawn of the internet. Either he makes sense of he has just come back from intergalatic space. The web has passed him by in terms of Accessibility issues.

[Plainer talk follows.]

But another, perhaps more refreshing, take is offered by McD's comment on Burningbird:

1. Say Something You Actually Believe (Even if you KNOW someone will be offended or take it personally).

2. When you're really upset, blog it.

3. If you don't know what you're talking about, allow comments, you'll learn a thing or two.

4. If your blog reads like every other blog or even most 'Top 100' blogs then you're just adding crap to the conversation. Be different.

5. If you love something, blog about it, someone will be changed.

6. Try to avoid using number is lists unless it seems to be a requirement.

7. Seven is a good place to stretch your imagination, consider blogging as a farm animal.

8. Eight looks really funny as a number and tends to make your post wander off topic.

9. Nine is german for No. Try not to upset Germans with excess negativity.

10. Have a strong finish. If they stick with you to the end give them a small treat, because they are the really smart ones you want to keep visiting, like you gentle reader!

I can't fault the first few points -- especially as applied to personal or political blogging, where passion, original perspective and unique voice count for drawing readers back.

And that's what you want, isn't it? For people to come back?

In other words, blogging isn't just about metrics. It isn't just about search engine optimization. It isn't just about tricking the system. Knowing those things can help you get noticed, yes. But when it comes down to it, the best blogs are those written with personality, with clarity, with a piece of the blogger right there on the page.

And I ain't talkin' about no darn photograph!

• Laura's blog
•