You may have read a few of my blog posts where I say I have been or am working on my blog but not all of that time is dedicated to writing blog posts or anything to do with the posts themselves. A chunk of my time is dedicated to running routine checks on my blog and making sure everything works as it should. Today I am sharing with you some routine checks that are worth carrying out in order to maintain your blog so it can continue running as it should.
Firstly, I tend to view my blog from the “other side”. Much of blogging means that you don’t really ever see the entrance way that visitors to your site get to see. We tend to only see the service entrance so to speak and lurk around in the back corridors doing our thing.
Once on the main page that your visitors land on, I check that the font for all of the text is readable and of the right size and colour. I then check that the pictures I have uploaded to my blog are clear and are relevant to that post’s topic. I check that the background and look of the blog are in keeping with my general theme. I also make sure that posts load in a timely fashion, there is nothing worse than slow loading pages. I note down any problems that there might be or things that I am not happy with that may need tweaking or changing.
Next, while I am on the landing page I check the sidebar, I always ask myself if the things displayed on the side are relevant, interesting, necessary and useful. If I answer no to any of these questions I will remove the item. I then check that the items function as they should, whether it is links to articles or other sites or that the information contained is correct. I tend to amend these things as I work my way down the sidebar.
My next task is to check that all posts are categorised correctly and tagged with relevant words. I read somewhere that posts should have up to 10 tags in order for them to appear in searches, any more and your post will be flagged as being spam. I am not sure how true that is but I like to stick to between 5 and 10 as it makes things easier for me to tag and categorise and run checks further down the line. Any posts that have been categorised incorrectly or have not been tagged I amend as I work my way through the posts.
I also check any links I have added. There are several ways to do this (have a look on Google for link checkers). I have used link checkers and have found them to be pretty handy if you have a load of posts to check, but now, personally, I prefer to check the links as I work my way through the posts manually. I had a problem with my Instagram link recently, I changed my username on Instagram and didn’t realise that it would affect the links on my blog, so it is worth checking these things out!
One of the other things I do is to check the formatting of my posts. I skim through my posts from the readers landing page and check that my posts all have similar formatting and that I am happy with the placement of images and how text appears. Again, if I am not happy with anything I will change it as I go.
Blog maintenance should be done at least once a month if you blog regularly (around 3 or more times a week) and for less frequent bloggers once a quarter should be sufficient. If it is done regularly then it will become a quicker process as some of the posts will only need to be checked for certain things (like broken links) after a while.
Do you run any sort of blog maintenance? What things do you check on your blog? Do you have any blog maintenance tips? Let me know in the comments!