What I've learned about blogging

When I started blogging, I think I was like a lot of people. Just looking for a place to write, say what I want to say, document my family growth, etc. After a year and a half of blogging I started thinking about "expanding" and looking to reach out to others, maybe do a review here or there, share things I'm making.

Along the way I have learned a lot from other bloggers. Especially in the last 6 months. But I am still learning and will continue to learn for as long as I blog.

Here are some of the things I've learned (Keep in mind, this is only my opinion!)

-Turn off Captcha Verification!
Have you ever commented on a page then gotten to captcha and just about walked away without publishing your comment? I feel like this every time! I will admit, when I first started blogging I used captcha.... until I started regularly commenting on other bloggers pages, and realized how annoying it was! I turned it off immediately. I didn't want spam getting on my page, so I instead have the comment moderator on so that I have to read the comment before it shows up on my page. I get so few spam comments anyway and I like to know when a new comment in posted so I can reply. Which leads me to my next topic....

-noreply-comment 
For a while I would try to keep up with my comments on the page where the comment took place- until I started having my comments emailed to me! Now I love being able to respond to people via email! Mainly because how often do you go back to the page to check if the blogger responded to you? I try, but usually fail at going back to look!  But sometimes bloggers don't have their email set up and you are not able to reply. Plug in your email so that I can email you back when you comment on my page.

-Music
Just.Don't. But if you insist on having music on your page, at least make it so that it doesn't auto play. Nothing drives me more crazy than when I go to a blog and music starts blaring because I forgot to turn the speaker off after I've watched a clip of something else. If I go to your page and music starts blaring, I will typically just close out.

-Page views counters
I think page views are great for our own viewing, but I'm over showing them off. I sort of feel it's like withdrawing your paycheck and saying, "Look how much I've got!"

-Ads/giveaways/reviews/sponsor begs
I think all of these are great as long as they are not overdone! I love reviews because they can be really helpful, and I am excited to be getting to do some reviews of my own. But if you constantly do reviews, and your niche is a "mom blog", I might start to skip over them. And if you are constantly asking for sponsors, I will keep on going.
I also try to steer clear of bloggers who say, "follow me and I'll follow you". Again, I have said this in the past, but now that I am more into blogging, I'd rather have readers who actually read my blog, instead of just adding to my follower count.

-Too busy blogs
If you have so many ads, sponsors, clutter, etc. on your page that I can't even find your post- then it's a problem!

-Unreadable fonts
I've debated over my own font since I changed my page almost a year and a half ago. I love this font but the exclamation point looks like an "l" or "1"... {{{ See !!! }}}  Just because you can read it, doesn't mean that everyone else can!

Well.... That's that! Like I said, these are just my views and thoughts about what I've seen since I started blogging.

So what do you think? What drives you crazy when it comes to blogging?