When you have so many things to do with your blog and a huge list of ideas you’ve got to put into action or complete, sometimes you just don’t know where to start. It’s even more stressful if you don’t have a list. Before we continue, I’d like to recommend you grab a notebook and begin to jot down anything you have to do for your blog. Keep your list organized, too. For example, keep one list of things you’re going to do to generate traffic to your blog, a separate list of changes you have to make to your design, etc. Organization is very important, and if you don’t have it then by the end of a tough blogging day you’ll be pulling your hair out.
Weekends are the best time to clean up your blog a little, and it make it look more appealing for your readers. They’re also the perfect time to get caught up on whatever you have to do, like responding to reader comments and emails. Since it’s a Sunday, today I’m going to supply you with a list of five things to do to tidy up your blog and catch up. Feel free to mentally modify this list to suit you, or to drop an item that doesn’t apply to your blog. I hope these tips are helpful for you.
1. Unclutter your sidebar. Look at your sidebars and take off anything you don’t need, whether it be banners to affiliate programs you’re not making money with, your archives list which can be moved to their own page, or anything. Don’t make excuses and clear up some cluttered space. For more details, read the link above.
2. Tidy up your blogroll. Whether you keep your blogroll in your sidebar or on its own page, it has to be cleaned out sometimes. Prune it of sites that are no longer updated, have changed topics, don’t suit you, or whatever. It’s worth rechecking all those blogs you’re linking to every now and then and deleting some of them. After all, they take up space on your site and you’re sending some of your visitors to them. You only want the best.
3. Clear out unused plugins. Surely there are some plugins you have installed that you don’t have activated or don’t use. Go to your FTP or your Cpanel and delete all the plugin files that you don’t need anymore. It’ll look a whole lot better to you, and trust me, organization does help to take some stress off the mind.
4. Go through old drafts. I’ve saved way too many drafts full of post ideas I’ve never implemented. Spend a little of your day deleting the drafts you don’t need or finishing writing the posts you’ve had saved for weeks or even months.
5. Delete all spam comments. If you’re saving all the spam comments that Akisment catches for whatever reason, DON’T. Do yourself a favor and clear them all out right now.
Of course, there’s a ton more things you can do to organize your blog’s appearance, feel, and inner workings. But if there’s a lot to get done, it’s hard to figure out where to start or how to go about it. If you follow this list, your blog will be more tidy already and hopefully it’ll get you in the mood to do some more weekend improvement.
After you’ve done these things, go around your blog finding other things that need reorganization or fixing up. Afterwards, be sure to catch up on what you haven’t done yet. Consider coming back to this list next weekend or making your own so you can stay on top of things. Let me know if this helped you or if you have any other tips for improvement. Thanks, and happy blogging!
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Great tips. Every blogger gets lazy and lets their clutter build up. Going through a checklist like this regularly is one of the best things a blogger can do for their blog’s design.
I have found that I absolutely cannot live without a todo list every day. It helps keep me organized and more importantly it helps to keep me focused. Having a weekly todo like this is a great idea too, otherwise things start to slip through the cracks. I’ll be referring back to your list often, thanks!
Good points Tay. Unused plugins are easy to forget about.
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@Michael - Thanks, I’m glad you found them useful. I’ve been trying to get my blog to look better on my end and on that of the readers, so I thought I’d share a few and some ideas.
@Paid Survey - I agree with you times ten! If I didn’t have a to-do list I don’t know what I’d do. I also try to sort my lists with my different ideas, and also organize them by what I need to work on daily and overall, and what needs to get done soon or that I have a deadline for. Like you said, it helps me focus too.
@Steven - Thank you. I had a few piling up myself, but I’ve trying to do better with my blog in every aspect so I got around to clearing them out.
Perhaps somebody should come up with a “Blog Maintenance Schedule” or something so that all of us can adapt from the schedule, heh. But then again, I do agree with your points, I always de-clutter my sidebars, I don’t keep a blogroll or many unpublished drafts and I delete spam comments daily.
@Pelf - That would actually be a good, helpful idea for those that need more organization in their blogging lives! It would probably be a little hard to do though, considering how different many blogs are.
Thanks for your comment and happy blogging!
Good tips! Keeping the blog tidy helps not only making it look good but also makes your blogging easy and something you enjoy more!
@BlogOxide - Yes, when you let your “blogging messes” pile up and let things get unorganized, it makes things harder on yourself. Thanks for reading and for your comment. Happy blogging!
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