6 Spring Cleaning Tips For Bloggers

Spring is about renewal, starting fresh, decluttering, and streamlining which is why I tend to get in a cleaning mood. When spring rolls around I start cleaning out my drawers, closets, and cabinets. I also do some spring cleaning on my blog. 

If you've been blogging for a while like me it's probably been some time since you've looked at any of your older posts or blog pages. So while you're in the mood for some decluttering and cleaning why not also tackle your blog?

Giving your blog a little refresher could help with increasing your blog traffic and growing your readership. Sounds good, doesn't it? Keep reading to see six ways you can give your blog a good spring cleaning.

(This post includes some affiliate links. Should you click an affiliate link and make a purchase I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.)

1. Check posts for broken links

Including links to related posts or popular posts around your blog can be great for reducing your bounce rate because readers tend to stay on your blog more. They are also great for driving traffic to old posts. But if those links are broken and don't work they can discourage readers so they don't come back. Going through old posts and checking that all links still work is an easy way to clean up your blog and also make sure you're not losing any potential traffic.

Related read: 10+ Resources To Grow Your Blog And Social Media

2. Review old posts for spelling errors

Lately, I've been going through old posts and updating the images and graphics. While I've been doing that, I'm also re-reading these posts and updating spelling and grammatical errors.

I'm a decent editor but if I've been working on a post for a while I find that it gets harder and harder for me to see spelling and grammatical errors. So I'm now using a tool called Grammarly. It scans my post when I'm editing to point out errors and provide suggestions for fixing the errors.

In the future to avoid publishing posts with errors I'll be editing 24 hours or more after I've finished writing it and use Grammarly as a second check.

3. Update old images

When reviewing my old posts for spelling errors I saw all my old pictures and realized I had been terrible at taking pictures and editing them. Several of my old photos were dark and poorly cropped. Images are so important in making your blog posts attractive and enticing. So I don't know what I was thinking. 

To correct this I went through all my old posts and either edited the old images to brighten them, re-shot them in natural light, or replaced them with free stock images. If you'd like to use stock images on your blog check out my post Where Beauty Bloggers Can Find Great Stock Images to see what some of my favorite stock houses are.

4. Update SEO

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is the unpaid or organic rankings of websites and blogs in search engine results. Essentially it is a critical way for people to find your blog. Set aside time each year to update your top traffic-driving posts and/or posts that have started to see a drop in traffic so they are still SEO-friendly.  You can see more about how to up or refresh your SEO game in my post 10 Essential SEO Tips For Bloggers.

5. Clean up the sidebar

Sidebars can be an important part of a blog but tend to get misused. You can clean up your sidebar by

• Moving important items toward the top such as a short welcome message and social icons
• Removing some ads so it's not so cluttered
• Getting rid of unused information and navigation 

6. Provide multiple opportunities for social sharing

As I spend more time blogging and reading blogs about blogging I've developed a greater appreciation for social media as a traffic driver. So I made it a priority to provide several easy options for people to share my posts on social media.

Some ways to do this are:

• Install the Sumo social sharing app 
• Add a Pinterest "pin me" button to your images
• Add a call to action in your post asking readers to share it

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