We did this presentation at an Indie Publishing event. Specifically we talked about how to make your authors blog more user friendly.

1. 10 Tips
Make Sure Your
Blog is User-Friendly

2. Which theme
should I use?

5. I want my blog to be perfect.

6. when I look at a theme demo,
does that work for me?
this theme has lots of options,
how tech savvy am I?
how much time do I have?
do I want someone to help me?
do I want a CUSTOM built site?

7. make it easy to subscribe

8. RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary)
is a family of Web feed formats used to publish
frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news
headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.
Make it easy to sign up for your RSS feed
Create an email signup

9. use categories & tags wisely

10. if they want to connect with you,
make sure they can

11. don’t be stingy, make it easy to
share

13. don’t go widget crazy

14. Barack Obama Sidebar Widget - WP-Amazon-MP3-Widget - Free
Unsigned Music - Flickr Widget - Feeds Widget - Skype widget-
creative commons license widget - Picasa Web Album Widget - No
WordPress.org
Widget Category Cloud - Amazon SmartLinks Widget by
AdaptiveBlue - Beer Mapping Badge Widget - Indoeuropean
Translator Widget - Your Planet Today widget - Weather Widget
has over
YouTube widget - FriendFeed Widget - Facebook Dashboard
Widget - S&P Wavewatch Surf Widget - Rhyming Widget -
MovieCollector Display Widget - Sponsors Slideshow Widget -
2,000 widgets
Mini Quilt - German Word of the Day Widget - Weight Loss
Calculator - Soundmixing Lightshow Widget - Lyric Wiki Search
Widget - Donation Can - Italian Word of the Day Widget - Internet
alone
Book Database Widget - Last.fm Recent Album Artwork - Russian
Word of the Day Widget - Spanish Word of the Day Widget - WP-
Horoscop Widget- StockTwits Widget- Funny & Motivational
Quotes Widget - BBC World Service Widget- Popularity Contest -
Christian Jokes- Fortunate Random Quotes - Give a Beer

15. if you readers want to comment,
make it easy

16. please, please
contact me!

17. it all
boils down
to this

18. search engine optimization
gets them there
good design gets them
interested
but content keeps them there
and coming back!