Blog Maintenance

July 3rd, 2019 Kimberly Blogger Tips and Tricks 32 Comments

3rd Jul
Caffeinated Tips & Tricks

We all love sharing our reviews, discussions, and participating in fun memes but it is equally important to make sure our blog is running correctly and easy to navigate. Grab an iced coffee and do an inspection with me.

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Today I am encouraging you to go through my checklist.

Under the Hood

We use the backend of WordPress each time we set up a post but it’s important to pay attention to updates, plugins and protect your site.

  • Be sure you’re regularly performing the updates for WordPress. This is important as often times they protect you from vulnerabilities.
  • Check that plugins are supported. I don’t think you need to do this every month, but would recommend that you do this after any major update from WordPress. Go to your plugins and take a moment to visit each site in the WordPress.Org repository. At the top of the plugins page it will tell you if the plugin is supported. You can also see when updates were last made.
  • Make sure your security is up and running. (Wordfence, Bulletproof, Sucuri, etc or choose a hosting site that does this for you)
  • Check Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to see if your site is having any issues. Aside from telling you what folks are searching and visiting each month, it also offers information on issues.

Quarterly Checks-ups

  • If you have any paid plugins that require renewal or updated protection be sure these are set up for auto renewal and that your information is up to date.
  • Own your own domain name? Make sure you know the month of renewal and update any info needed.
  • Tidy up. Remove images that you aren’t using. (I like to do this quarterly)
  • Remove unwanted posts. Say What? I like to remove old giveaways, cover reveals etc that are expired. I either remove the giveaway part of the post, reclassify as review only or if the post no longer has relevant information I simply redirect link to my home page and delete it. As your blog ages you will appreciate removing the bloat.
  • Hosting- Review your hosting. If you are happy be sure your renewal information is up to date or start the process of research a new home.

The Exterior

How often do you visit your site and view it from a visitor’s perspective? This is important. You’d be surprised at the way code, image and functionality change.

  • Clean up your Sidebar. Remove outdated events, giveaways and challenges. If you have loading issues, consider moving blogs you follow, challenge updates etc to a page in your menu bar.
  • Check all Social Icons. Do they open up correctly?
  • Open a Post. Check all links.
  • Do you use social share icons? Click them and be sure they are correct. Does your Twitter share include a title to the post? Does it link to your Twitter name?
  • Open a different browser and visit your site as a stranger. Is it easy to comment? Do the posts and images load correctly and efficiently?
  • Does your newsletter work properly?

Quarterly Check-ups

I recommend viewing your site from different browsers and mobile devices. Check Google Analytics to see how YOUR visitors are viewing your blog and focus your efforts on those. This is particularly important if you change your theme or there is a WordPress update.

  • You can test how your site looks and functions on different screens and devices with this tool: Screenfly
  • Check how your site looks in different browsers: Browsershots
  • Tech savvy? Change view using developer tool in your navigation bar and test.

With a little effort you can keep your site running smoothly.

Blog Maintenance. Grab an iced coffee and do an inspection with me. Share on X
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About Kimberly
Kimberly is a coffee loving book addict who reads and listens to fictional stories in all genres. Whovian, Ravenclaw, Howler and proud Nonna. She owns and manages Caffeinated PR. The coffee is always on and she is ready to chat. BlueSky | Facebook | Instagram

32 Responses to “Blog Maintenance”

  1. Anne - Books of My Heart

    I love that you are doing posts like this. I am constantly trying to improve my stuff. I am going back and removing old graphics which were from The Book Nympho since those all got ported over. I only have my reviews though, not Jennifer’s or Jonetta’s.

  6. Sophie

    This is fantastic advice Kimberly! I already tidy up every four months deleting old pictures attached to pas promo posts and old promo posts. I also use WP Optimizer to delete any drafts, old comments in the bin, empty trash etc.

  7. Dani @ Perspective of a Writer

    WOW!! This is an incredible list and I already see a couple things I didn’t think were that important but you make a great case for. I will be doing this soon. Thanks so much Kimberly!! ❤️

  8. Rachel

    I’ll have to check which of these apply to Blogger as well. I’m not even sure what a plugin is. I didn’t set up our blog initially. I really need to get more versed in this type of thing because when I have an issue it really sucks. :/ Great post, Kimberly! 🙂

    Rachel recently posted: Review & Giveaway: Someone to Honor by Mary Balogh

  9. S. J. Pajonas

    Great list! I’ve been a web developer since 1997 and I’ve been a WP developer since 2006. It’s definitely important to take good care of the backend of your site!

    S. J. Pajonas recently posted: Gone On Vacation!

  11. Suzanne @ The Bookish Libra

    Thanks for sharing all of these maintenance tips! I’m pretty good about keeping WordPress and all of my plugins up to date and making sure my security is doing what it should, but I sometimes forget about many of the other important tasks on your list.

  14. Lorna

    Great post for blog owners. I have respect for people that have a well organized and maintained blog. Some blogs I visit don’t.

  16. Jackie Briere

    Your blog is such a nice and organized place to visit. I visit frequently btw because I love how easy it is to navigate and it looks pretty 🙂 as well as you always have good content 🙂

  17. Samantha

    What do you use to manage your redirects? I am totally down with deleting old crap that is just taking up space, but I don’t know how to manage redirects. I have one plug in, but you have to do EACH link you delete individually. I’ll be here until 2085 if I do that!

    • Kimberly

      I use . plugin called Redirections. Most of the time I just delete the giveaway part of a post, remove the giveaway tag and keep the review, but sometimes I do a promo post that becomes obsolete and I simple redirect that link to my home page and delete the post.

  19. sjhigbee

    What a fabulously helpful article – I was recently embarrassed to discover I had a 404 error message come up on one of the links featured in my sidebar… Thank you, Kimberly:)

  22. Ethan

    This is such a helpful post! I agree that we sometimes get so focused on getting the next post out that we forget about maintaining our blogs. Visiting well-maintained blogs always help inspire me to clean up my own.

    Ethan recently posted: If She Wakes by Michael Koryta

  24. Carla

    Thanks Kimberly. There are a few things here that I need to do, especially cleaning up images and giveaways.

  28. Tanya @ Rantings of a Reading Addict

    I’m really, really bad about addressing older posts. It’s like once they’ve published they are out there and I am done with them. I do need to straighten up some of my categories and tags on posts. I found a bunch of posts that I didn’t put the series in so when I look at my page of reviews by rating, they are not showing the series. That annoys me so I really need to spend some time fixing that up. If I could just get ahead on posts!

    Tanya @ Rantings of a Reading Addict recently posted: Bookish Life Budget ~ June 2019 Update

  30. ShootingStarsMag

    Thanks for all of these tips. I really should go back and delete some older posts…I mean, almost 12 years of blog posts, there’s probably a lot of duds in there that are no longer relevant by any means. haha

    -Lauren