The beginning of this month marked the start of meteorological spring, and whilst the grey skies and current lockdown situation may leave most of us feeling more bleak than bright, I can reassure you that better days are around the corner. Don’t believe me? Just peep out of the window at seven in the morning and you’ll notice that things are a little more radiant.
The arrival of spring ushers in the need to spruce up our homes. You may have already cleared out the clutter from your cupboards and dust off the cobwebs from the corners of you your rooms. But have you refreshed your blog?
Well, if not now is the time to spring clean your digital home. I mean, sis, how long have you been blogging? Months? Years? Are you still sure that all your information is up to date? There are many reasons why an occasional “sort through” is important. Firstly, as I mentioned, spring cleaning your blog is the perfect opportunity to ensure your info is still relevant; it will also excite your loyal readers as well as attract new ones; and let’s not forget, it helps with your SEO!
Six Top Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Blog
So, exactly how do you clear the dust from your blog? I am about to guide you through six top tips for spring cleaning your blog. Go into your blog archives and start as far back as you want to – whether it’s twelve months ago or your very first post. It may take some time, but working through each blog post at a time, do the following:
1. Test all of your links.
Why should you do this? You may have embedded some links into your blog posts that are no longer useful. Sometimes, the link may lead to a website that has been recently taken down or a page that is no longer relevant. The former can be detrimental to your blog’s domain authority, so link testing is very important!
Also, have you changed the names of your social media pages recently? If you have, make sure where you have them linked, that is also being corrected.
2. Check if your photos could do with changing
One of the easiest ways to give your blog a facelift is to update your images. This is an especially useful exercise if you wish to change the overall look and feel of your content. Whilst you do this, don’t forget to name the images appropriately.
3. Update your digital branding
A very subtle change you can make, that will impact the overall look and feel of your blog is to change your fonts: either the text of your actual blog posts or your navigation menu and sidebar. Most of the time, you can do this on the back end, with the font options that come with your blog template, or you can go one step extra and purchase the font that suits your theme perfectly from a fancy fonts site. You can keep playing around with different font options until you find one you’re satisfied with.
4. See if your facts are still relevant.
Perhaps there has been a significant update to the major points of a story since you blogged about it. Or you may have even made errors with your facts and figures in the first place. Nothing screams “outdated” pr “not credible” louder than information that is wrong or no longer relevant. So please stay on top of it!
5. Refresh your layout
Switching up the layout, changing the colour scheme or adding a new logo is the biggest way to facelift your blog. It can also be a fun project to embark on – much like refurbishing your actual home! What is more, you can change as much or as little as you want – take as much creative discretion as needed.
6. Get rid of the old!
Whilst, you’re at it, how about sending some old posts which no longer align with your blog’s niche or messaging back to draft status? (Do this rather than delete them altogether so you can bring them back if needed).
That’s it! Six top tips for spring cleaning your blog. Good luck with your cleanse! I hope you find it as therapeutic as physical cleaning. Can you think of more?
BONUS: Once you have given your blog posts a nice polish, repromote them on your social media channels. It’s only fair people see all the hard work you have put in. It’s just like inviting friends over to chill in your newly refurbished living room!
Please let me know if you’ll be taking on any of my advice, and if there is anything else you have done to clean the place up.
Disclaimer: this post contains an affiliate link
Happy Sunday Madeline. Hope you're having a lovely one. I love this post and I most of them them regularly except #2. Updating pictures seems to me like a lot of work. Lol. <a href="http://www.amakamedia.com>amakamedia.com</a>
Hi Nwamaka. I am glad you are already implementing these. Pictures are a lot of work, but there might be one or two that may not be as agreat as you would have liked. Happy Sunday to you sis!
These are some really great ideas sis. I've been thinking about doing number five but, then I also thought, meh it doesn't matter. Its all part of the journey so lemme leave it at that. Ha!https://www.missymayification.co.uk
Thanks Missy. Haha! Sometimes it's nice to leave it so people can see your progress. But then do you ever look back and say to yourself 'damn, did I really write that?!'.
Love the idea of a Spring clean for your blog! I usually make all of my changes at the beginning of the year, but come to think of it I could definitely do with switching up my profile photos across my blog and social media. Thanks for the inspiration, Madeline! :)aglassofice.com x
Thank you Gabby. It seems a lot of people already are onto this. I'm looking forward to see your new photos
I definitely need to test links on my blog. Especially my images. Noticed a while ago that they were all wrong and I have just been to lazy, overwhelmed to do any fixing. I'll also have a look around, especially the old posts and re-edit, trash or bring them back if need be. Thanks for the tips!
It's important! I realised some of my blog posts had been turned to absoloute trash after they'd been transported from WordPress to Blogger! You are most welcome. Please let me know how you get on. x
Great ideas. I really need to do this. Sometimes we get carried away with keeping up with new posts, we forget to go back to basics. Thanks for this.www.bubusboulevard.com
Thank you Bubu. I'm also guilty of not 'tidying up as I go along '. We forget that new readers and subscribers might want to read back to old posts. Good luck with your spring clean!