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Every few months I set aside a block of time to do a little ‘spring cleaning’ of my blog.
In this video I share 10 11 areas that I’ve worked on when spring cleaning my blogs.
They include (I’ve included links for each point where I’ve written recently(ish) on them):
- New Design
- New Header or Design or Other Elements
- Cleaning up Sidebars
- Updating Old Posts
- Repairing Dead Links
- Deleting Comment Spam
- Backing Up
- Resolving 404 Errors
- Overhauling Navigation
- Ad Optimization
- Search Engine Optimization
There are plenty more tasks that could be added to this list. Feel free to suggest others that you do.
Apologies for the poor audio – as we’re packing at the moment my normal camera is all boxed up and I had to use my webcam.
Great tips! Yep, your site now looks more elegant. Gotta run and start cleaning things up. Oops, just realized mine is still new, so many things to clean up:)
Great suggestions, Darren! The little things like cleaning up sidebars and tweaking design elements can easily be neglected. Thanks for reminding us!
Spring cleaning is good for any website.
I am new to your blog but I have been reading a lot, many good tips and articles, thanks.
Thank you for the tips, Darren. I’m trying your tips.
Good suggestions there, Darren. My blog could do with some spring cleaning. I feel like deleting some redundant posts 5 months ago…
Great set Brian. I’m currently seeking to overhaul my Photowalking.org site. These tips will help me, thanks.
Checking for dead links is always on my to do list, but it never makes it to the top. Thanks for the reminder!
yes, you are right most of the bloggers dont do the backup on regular bases, which is very very important.
I would definitely try to do this, Any ways its a nice and informative video.
Keep it up, Darren
-abs
Oh jeez! I really need to fix up my 404 errors… fun!
As for backup and comment spam, I deal with those on a weekly basis, so I don’t need to worry about that *phew!*
I have a question regarding suggestions one through three.
How much does design matter if most of your readers are following your blog via their favorite blog reader app?
Sometimes I feel like anything I put in my sidebar or header is a waste and will rarely be seen by any of my regular readers due to the fact that they are catching my content in an aggregator app.
Thoughts?
Joseph Hollak
I think it’s important in a couple of ways Joseph.
1. while the majority of your readers might use RSS to follow you and rarely see the blog itself – how did they come to subscribe to you in the first place? I would hazard a guess that it was on your blog in 99% of the case and that design would be one of the factors in that.
2. readers do come across from feeds – it varies a lot from blog to blog – but I find quite a few readers come across either to read the full article in a different setting to their aggregator, to comment, to take part in a poll, to read how others have responded. This might not happen with every reader every day – but when they do come across it’s an opportunity to reinforce your brand in their mind.
I don’t think that design is everything – but I think it’s still important.
Thank you for this video. You have inspired me and now I have new design (more adsense optimalize).