Even your blogs need frequent health checks! Yes, they are like any other thing- cars, electronics- which need regular checkups and proper maintenance.
No matter whether you’re planning to start a new blog or already have one for years, it is important to remember that its success always depends on what it contains. Right from content to presentation, plug-ins, images, videos and theme, everything plays a vital role in determining its popularity.
An active blog without dead links, heavy plug-ins and optimized content loads faster. Therefore, the key is not to make a mess of things to protect it from lagging and performing poorly.
You may be fond of experimenting with new plug-ins in your blog as soon as they are launched. Not a bad thing but what I would suggest you is- quickly get rid of it if it doesn’t work. Don’t stick around just because it’s new and has worked wonders for others.
Now don’t limit the concept of blog maintenance just to getting rid of things that do not work for you. It also includes
- Backing up the blog
- Limiting the plug-ins
- Optimizing the content
- Removing dead links
- Deleting unused files and images
- Cleaning up the spam comment
- Testing the loading time
- Checking the relevancy of content
When was the last time when you did all this? Don’t remember? Do it right now to avoid future problems. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing and let me tell you that your blog can come under their suspicion anytime. So, conduct quality checks regularly and become the darling of search engines.
Here is what you can do to keep your blog running as smooth and hassle-free as possible.
1. Treat Your Blog As If It Is Someone Else’s
Come on, how can I do this? How can I pretend that I don’t own this blog? But the fact is that you will have to do this to fairly scrutinize your blog. Try to be impartial and judge your blog as if you’re judging some other blog on the internet.
See if it is cluttered with unwanted things such as ads, pop ups or gift baskets. Check if it is easy to navigate from one page to another. Do you like the way it looks? Tweak things that are not in sync with the theme of your blog every few weeks.
2. Remove Inactive/Unwanted Links
This is one of the best SEO strategies. Remove all inactive, unwanted, unrelated and dead links that give your blog a spammy feel. Even if you’re looking to build some new links, don’t just follow the old blogging conventions. Take a look at the Google Analytics/ Panda and Penguin updates so that you no longer violate quality guidelines.
3. Test Loading Time
When did you test the loading time of your blog page last time? Most probably, the day when you started your blog! Since then you must have added loads of plug-ins, widgets and other items that increase the loading time of your blog.
Make use of a page speed checker and test the loading time as soon as possible. This can be one of the main reasons of not getting enough traffic on your blog.
All these things need to be done quite a few times in a year to make sure that your blog is running smoothly. I do them religiously. What about you?