Blog neglect is a joke.

Nowhere did you ever proclaim that you were going to post once a day or a couple times a week, but the basic assumption out there among your readers is that if your blog doesn't have a frequent enough posting schedule, it might as well be DOA.

What is considered a frequent posting schedule? Who knows - but in reality, it shouldn't matter anyway.

Since blog neglect is determined in the mind of your readers, all you need to do is take certain precautions when designing your new blog template to prevent against this assumption.

The 5 Step Anti-Neglect Approach

1. Don't prominently display the post's published-on date.
   This is the most unconventional of the modifications, but by far the most important. If a visitor starts browsing your site, one of the first things he or she will look at is when it was last updated. This is not necessary information - if the content of the article is worthwhile, then the date it was published is in most cases irrelevant.

   If you feel the overwhelming need to show the published date, but still don't plan on updating your blog on a regular schedule, then at least put it in an inconspicuous area where it's not the first thing a visitor will see when viewing your blog.

2. Don't add the Date Archives to your sidebar.
   This widget is much more than a perception killer. Aside from contributing to your page bloat that can drastically kill your SEO, having this list on your sidebar gives your visitors direct and easy access to your posting frequency habits. Who is going to subscribe to a feed that only had one post last month? It's best to keep them guessing if you fit into this category.

3. Remove the dates from your Permalinks.
   If you omit your published-on date but still use Wordpress's default permalink structure intact - you are completely defeating the purpose of this article. Use the below example, or come up with a new one on your own. Plus, that default date-based structure is so ugly and overused anyway.

   /archive/%postname%/

4. Don't publish your RSS subscriber numbers.
   This should be the case if you plan on updating regularly or not until you have at least 200+ subscribers. Showing your subscriber count from Feedburner (you ARE using FB right?) does more to your psyche than anything else, forcing you to "keep 'em happy" with articles. The minute you start doing this, your sub par posts will force them to hit the unsubscribe button faster than you can click "Publish."

   When you are ready to publish those subscriber numbers, give Mapelli's FeedCount WP plugin a try. I have used it on a number of projects so far, and I would recommend it to anyone.

5. Don't show Category post count.
   This one may not be a bad step to skip if you have an established blog with a bunch of posts, but if you are starting out - don't show the post count. Here's the code to do just that:

   <ul>
   <?php wp_list_categories('orderby=name&show_count=0'); ?>
   </ul>