Quality Tips for a Home Business Blog

So you write a blog for your home-based business in order to promote your products or services. But are you a "Blog Slob?" Too often people treat blogs sloppily just because blogs are an informal medium of communication.

If you're not putting in enough effort -- and sticking to some basic blog best practices -- you're really not giving your business the kind of online promotion it deserves.

Here are some things that are on my own quality 'pet peeve' list.

• Excessive Typos - It might seem like obvious advice, but watch those typos! Just because blogs are informal doesn't mean the blog posts should be full of typographical errors. And don't just rely on spell check. There are a lot of errors that spell check won't pick up (e.g. missing words, wrong word, etc.).
• Hard to Read - Make your blog posts easy for your readers, not hard on their eyes. Many blogs include paragraphs that are too long. Break up your paragraphs so they are only a few sentences each. This format works better online and your readers will have an easier time reading your stuff.
• Read More What? - If you use a summary teaser and a "read more" link, make sure you make the "read more" section worthwhile. Does it bug you when you click "read more" only to find one or two additional sentences to read?
• Horizontal Scrolls - Some things can make your blog template blow up and become wider than the screen. The biggest offenders are images that are too large. Crop the image down to size if they make your template go into horizontal scroll.
• Content Pinching - If you use other people's content (even if you quote them properly), make sure you add enough of your own spin to make the post interesting. Too often someone writes something like, "Bob wrote a really good post on the subject of Customer Retention" and the rest of the post is all quoted material. Maybe you couldn't have said it any better than "Bob," but you should still give your readers something else to chew on! If you don't, they might think you're being lazy.

What about you? Do you have any blog quality tips to add?