It’s very easy for little mistakes to creep up in your blog. Small things that ordinarily, you wouldn’t look near. But a little mistake can have a big effect on how a person sees your site.

Do You Live in the Past?

How many web sites have “© Copyright 2008 Blog Name” in their footer? But does yours still say “© Copyright 2007 Blog Name?”

It’s a simple mistake to make (Why would you be reading your own footer?), but if a reader notices it, they’ll have a nice laugh at your expense.

Even the very best of us make mistakes, isn’t that right TechCrunch and Shoemoney?

Do You Still Recommend Your Blogroll?

A reader generally trusts a blogroll recommendation. When clicking a blogroll link from a blogger I respect, I expect to find a high-quality site on the other end.

Presumably each blog you add to your list is high quality at the time, but not all blogs maintain that quality. Are you still subscribed to their feeds? Has the author been absent of late?

Spring clean your blogroll so that your recommendations continue to be valuable.

Do You Make False Claims?

Here on Pro Blog Design, I remove the NoFollow from my reader comments. Or at least, I thought I did.

Thanks to Marshall, I found out that the Link Love plugin does not work with WordPress 2.3. A lot of people are using this plugin, and most of them won’t have realised either.

Sadly, this honest mistake won’t look so honest to a reader who sees a DoFollow banner on your blog, but finds only nofollows in your code.

For those of you using Link Love, install NoFollow Free instead. It works a charm, and has even more features to play with. Apologies for recommending Link Love in my comment plugins post!

Does Your Blog Still Validate?

If your blog has valid code, it’s common to boast about it in the footer. However, just because a design was valid when you set up your blog, doesn’t mean it still is.

I have xHTML and CSS validation buttons at the bottom of every page here. But at the moment, both of them are invalid on my homepage. This doesn’t bother me because the CSS errors are irrelevant and the HTML ones will disappear off the page in a few posts (And be replaced by new ones no doubt!). It is something that I should look into though, or at least remove my claim…

If you use the buttons, you should check up on them every now and again to make sure things aren’t getting out of hand.

Do Your Readers See What You see?

For most people, there is no reason to ever load up a second browser. Unfortunately, this means that if something goes wrong in another browser (e.g. a plugin malfunctioning), you won’t know about it until someone tells you.

One trick for designers at least (Who load up the other browsers when coding every now and again), is to set your blog as your homepage. That way, you’ll see it often enough.

In the same vein, you should be subscribed to your own RSS feed. Your RSS feed is crucial, and an error there could cost you a lot of subscribers.

Have you made any of these mistakes on your own blog? I know I have. Little mistakes are all too easy to make.

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