How's your blog or website looking right now?
I'll be honest: mine could be in better shape! I've
been writing new content, but I've not been doing a great job of keeping things up-to-date across the site. Checking out old posts or updating my Contact page feels a bit like housework: I'd rather write!
Just like the housework, though, I've found that even a few minutes can make a real difference. If your website or blog needs a little bit of extra
attention, here are 12 five-minute jobs you can do during a coffee break.
Note that all references to plugins and the website dashboard relate to self-hosted WordPress, which is what I use and recommend. If you have a different setup for your blog or website, all these tips still apply though!
#1: Check your About page is up to date (and fix it if necessary)
Your About page is one of the most-visited pages on your blog ... and new readers will often head there to figure out whether they want to stick around. I try to check mine every
3 - 6 months to make sure that nothing's become outdated; a quick update is normally all it needs.
#2: Check your Contact form is working (and fix it if it isn't)
Have you ever contacted a blogger by filling in the
form on their site ... only to hear nothing back? They might have been blanking you, but just as likely is their contact form not working. It takes seconds to check yours: make up a name and email address, and check that the message comes through to your inbox. If it doesn't, see if you can figure out what's going wrong. Are the emails going to your spam folder? Or are they not being sent at all?
#3: Tidy up your sidebar, removing outdated widgets
Most bloggers have cluttered sidebars. It's very easy to add widgets over time – and this can end up making your blog look untidy. It's also difficult for readers to
find what really matters (probably the box where they sign up for your email newsletter). Are there any widgets in your sidebar that no-one would miss?
#4: Check for spam comments that made it through your filters
Hopefully, you're using some sort of spam filter (like the plugin Akismet): even so, you might find that an occasional spam comment gets through onto your blog. Check under Comments --> All Comments to see whether there are any recent comments that you need to delete. (Conversely, it's often worth checking under Comments --> Spam to make sure that no genuine comments got eaten up by the spam filter.)
#5: Run a broken link checker
Over time, links break (stop working) because the page or post you're linking to gets removed. This can happen on your own blog, if you change your permalink structure (the URLs of your blog posts), but it's more
likely to happen when you've linked to someone else's website that changes or shuts down for some reason. There are plenty of plugins, like "Broken Link Checker", that can help you find links that no longer work. Once you have a list of these, spend a few minutes at a time fixing them.
#6: Add (at least) one link into an older
post
The earlier posts on your blog may not have contained many links: perhaps you weren't in the habit of linking to your other posts, or you simply didn't have much to link to! Use Google Analytics, or another analytics tool, to see which of your older posts get decent traffic. Pick one of these and add at least one link to another, related, post on
your blog (e.g. if you have a blog post about "good games to play with toddlers", you might want to include a link to a more recent post you've written on "games to play with preschoolers", or on tips for "entertaining toddlers while you're out and about").
#7: Add a call to action in an older post (e.g. link to your newsletter sign-up
page)
Another great way to update older posts that still get traffic is to give readers a clear action to take after reading the post. That could be almost anything: perhaps encouraging them to read more about the topic on your blog (the more posts they read, the more likely they are to stick around for the long-term), pointing them towards your
newsletter, or encouraging them to check out your product. The one call to action I'd avoid here is asking readers to comment: this doesn't tend to work so well on old posts.
#8: Add subheadings or bold text to an older post
It's easy to rush posts out without a lot of formatting – and a few small tweaks can make a huge visual difference. Go back to an old post (again, you might want to use Google Analytics to see what's getting traffic) and add in some subheadings to break up the text, and/or put some key sentences in bold to help them stand out. This helps readers who are skimming, but also helps those who want to
read every word: the formatting acts like signposts to keep them oriented within your post.
#9: Check that your social media icons actually link to your social media profiles (and fix if they don't)
Many blog themes
come with swish social media icons in the header, sidebar or footer – a "f" for Facebook, a little bird for Twitter, and so on. These are great -- but if you click on them and they just go to the home page of Facebook, Twitter, etc, that means you haven't yet configured them to link to your social media profiles. (There'll be an option somewhere in your blog's dashboard: check out the documentation for the theme you're
using to find out where.) You want to make it as easy as possible for your readers to find you on social media ... and broken links can make your site look a bit amateur or neglected.
#10: Check that your menu looks right and that all the links are working
Your blog's menu (aka "navigation menu" or "navigation") will almost certainly run from left to right near the top of your blog. Make sure that it displays how you'd expect (e.g. if one menu item wraps round onto a second line, you might want to remove / shorten the various links in the menu). Check each link and make sure that it goes to the correct page, too. Personally, I think menus should always be kept to a single line: if you have more
links to include, put them in as drop-downs.
#11: Check that your "start here" page is up to date ... or start collecting the links to create one
If you have a "start here" (or similar) page on your blog, it's worth
checking occasionally that it still forms a good introduction to you and the site. You might want to occasionally add more posts, for instance, or remove older ones -- especially if the focus or direction of your blogging has changed slightly. If you don't yet have a "start here" page but you've got a fair amount of content, spend a few minutes collecting the links to some posts that would be useful reads for new visitors to the site.
#12: Try out your blog or website on your phone
Visit your blog on your phone. How does it look? If it looks just like it does on the computer, it's probably going to be quite hard to read on such a small screen. You might want to look into
getting a "responsive" theme for your blog, or you might want to install a plugin to create a mobile-friendly version of your site (there are some recommendations here).
All of these tasks are ones that you'll want to repeat occasionally -- and some (like updating old blog posts with links, call to action, and subheadings / bold text) can be done over and over again. Next time you have a few minutes to spare, pick on of them to tackle. Good luck!
