9 - Posts and topics that are not within the blog's stated purview. In other words, if you claim to be a music and tech blog, don't blog about politics or conspiracy theories, etc.

8 - Infrequent, sporadic updates.

7 - the "Kiss and Make Up" Post - Even worse than sporadic updates, "I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been......[insert made up excuses here]"

6 - No RSS feed. 99% of the world's available blogging software/services make your blog available as an RSS feed. If you don't have one, you're losing out on a larger audience.

5 - Unsupported/unlinked claims: In a word "attribution." If you're quoting someone (a living, blogging being) provide linked quotes. If you're citing research, link to the relevant paper. Linking to direct sources lends credibility to your blog as it will appear you're doing your homework. And you will be.

4 - Links to fringe websites to buttress your argument: Few things have less credibility than a fringe community site (Little Green Footballs, Huffington Post, etc). Resist the temptation to link to these cesspools.

3 - Embedded media set to "autoplay" when the page loads. BIG NO NO! If there's one site on the planet that's taken the embedded audio to a new low, it's MySpace. Don't be like MySpace.

2 - ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! (actual content) ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!! ADVERTISEMENTS!!

And the number one blog killer of them all?? YOU!: Face it, you're probably in the 98% of us that are terrible writers. Inadequate vocabulary, poor grammar, and superfluous reasoning combined with a holier-than-thou sense of conviction will spell death for your blog long before you've had the opportunity to make any more of these mistakes.

A VERY GOOD BLOG is like a Boy Scout: Thrifty with adverts, clean design and layout (no fuchsia-on-black), reverent to the blog's topic, and able to change when the situation calls.

Picture by LJ0913