blog maintenance

Blog maintenance is something I hadn't given much thought to until recently. {and truth be told, I haven't acted on those thoughts, only thought them} It isn't as essential on the blogger platform, so I've let it slide. But that doesn't mean you should let it slide, too. Here are some tips for giving your blog a bit of a spruce up (working on this over the next couple of months will give you a great start for 2015)

• update plugins if you're on wordpress. This is so vital to the smooth running of your blog!
• check for broken links broken links to outbound posts (where you've linked to other blogs), or posts from pinterest you've shared the "old" way. If the post you linked to doesn't exist any more, just remove the hyperlink, don't delete the whole post.
• clean up your archives I'm against deleting posts from your archive, but if the post is irrelevant (for example, you joined a giveaway on a blog and you had to share their post on your blog, but the business no longer exists, or it's something you're not interested in anymore) then you can get rid of it. Remember, even years later, if the other platform still exists, your link to them will be generating "google juice" 
• check that your image storage is ok if, like me, you're a bit oblivious to the size of your images when uploading them, you might run out of storage unexpectedly. First, find where your images are stored (google has 3 different storage spaces, and I recently found out my images are in all 3 spaces - picasa, on blogger, and most recently on G+)
• empty your comment spam folder I don't even check to see if comments have been caught by mistake, I just delete the whole lot.
• update any sidebar images and clear the clutter. If you won an award in 2010, leaving it displayed in your sidebar might make people think you haven't been as good since then.
• get a new photo of you for your sidebar (or about page) we all change as we get older, people want to be able to recognise you now (especially important, if you subscribe to the personal brand theory that you are your blog, no one will recognise you if your image is 10 years old!)

Have I left anything out?