Once-a-Year Blog Maintenace–Are You Up to Date?
For most writers I know, life zooms by with few breaks to pause, glance around at the surroundings and clean up the clutter and confusion that grows like mold from our everyday authorial life. The end of the calendar year was a good time to do that, when many of us were blogging less, posting almost nothing, and had less commitments and obligations than would fill our usual week.
Yearly blog maintenance--have you taken care of it?
Have you seen those weeks? When push came to shove, they got pushed into my six (as my soldier friends say) and now I’m neck-deep in New Year’s resolutions, new projects and honey-do’s. No matter. With my agent planning to send my book out to publishers in 3-6 months (assuming I complete the edits, sigh), I want everything with my name attached to it as extravagant and full of promise as a sunrise. Here’s my list:
- Checked old posts for grammar and spelling. I start with the most-visited articles (under Site Stats) and work my way down (in case I run out of time). I’ve been surprised what I can catch with a fresh eye
- Checked my blog’s sidebar for out-of-date and no-longer-relevant widgets and links, and new pieces (like awards I’ve received and links to share with readers) that add to the utility of my blog. I even moved the pieces around to give a fresh look to my seven blogs.
- Checked my list of ‘pages’. Sure, I’m on top of the Home page, but are the others still relevant? Is their information up to date? Umm, no, especially my profile. I’ve grown since I last updated it. I also cleaned up a few pages that I’d thrown up planning to clean up when I had a few extra minutes. And, I got ideas from e-colleagues and added a WIP and a Published page as well as Contact forms so readers could notify me if there was a WIP they’d like to know about upon publication.
- Checked the appearance of my blog on a smart phone and an iPad to see if they required adjustments to display better. Truth, I’m not techie-smart enough to do anything about issues. Luckily, nothing struck me as impossible to deal with.
- Checked my blog in different browsers to see if I should recommend one over the other for best-viewing. I checked Firefox, IE and Chrome–all looked fine.
That’s it from my end. Do you have any maintenance issues you’d suggest for the new year? I’d love to hear them.
Maybe not every year, but:
1. Could I change the background color?
2. Could I change the background image?
3. Refresh the header?
4. Maybe even redesign the whole blog?
Yes yes yes and yes–although as you say, I wouldn’t recommend doing that every year. Readers get used to your storefront, your office, and are uncomfortable overall with change. Think of your favorite grocery store when they move the catsup to a different isle. Annoying. I tolerate it if they don’t do it too often. Otherwise, I find a new favorite.
Great post! Thanks for these super ideas. I also try to check whether the blogs I follow follow back or if they are still there.
You’re more than welcome. You’ve mentioned two good ideas. I try to go through my blog roll yearly to–as you say–make sure everyone’s still there!
This is a wonderful post. Once again, I read something that I have never given a thought to…
Thanks for some good–and important ideas…
Being writers is as much about building our business and our creds as it is about writing these days. Our blog is our face to the world so it pays to keep that blemish free.
Great information! This is my first visit. I found your blog through a post from http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/.
I am a computer technology instructor, aspiring writer and new blogger. I look forward to exploring your work.
I always wonder how people find me. You might like my tech teacher blog also–Ask a Tech Teacher.