I know it’s been a while and I keep putting it off, but it’s time to spring clean that blog. And that’s exactly what I have done for The Photographer Blog as part of the changes, in fact it’s the first thing I did.
And here are 4 very good reasons why it’s a good thing to do:
1. Fix or remove broken links
Over time it’s easy for links to become broken, I even found one of my RSS links had broke and that’s obviously not good. So I checked through all my links to see if they still worked and if I wanted to still use them. The last thing I want to do is get my readers interested in my blog, only to run into a dead end or something off topic.
2. Tidy up sidebar
The same is true for the sidebar, again it’s easy for it to get cluttered with different elements that I am testing. So I did a de-clutter of the sidebar and looked at what was most useful. I think this is definitely a less is more scenario, because I want the sidebar to be clean and easy to search through for important information, like my RSS subscribe.
3. Update Plugins
I’ve noticed for a while little update messages appearing on some of my plugins in plugin management, obviously periodically authors will update their plugins and it’s important to update them when they are released. I kept putting it off and my Google Sitemap stopped working properly because of it. This caused all kinds of problems until I realised it was the missing upgrade that had caused it. Also if I am going to be upgrading Wordpress (which I was) I will upgrade all plugins first in case of compatibility issues.
4.Update Wordpress
I have now upgraded to Wordpress 2.5.1. I did wait until the first update after the major upgrade had happened, before I upgraded just so the major bugs were fixed. But it is the biggest upgrade for a while and the whole look of the backend has changed. So I had to have a look around to get used to it and find everything again. I have to say I like the new look and I think it’s easier to navigate around.
Again the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin saved the day and I upgraded quickly with no problems (thank goodness). One thing I have noticed and I don’t see how there is any connection, but since upgrading Wordpress the traffic stats for the case study blog have increased. I’d imagine it’s just a coincidence.
This was quite a personal view of how I have given my blog a spring clean and the advantages I have seen because of it. I hope sharing it has been helpful.
Mandy
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Spring cleaning the blog is a mode of making it look spruced up. The real spring cleaning required of a good blogger is of his mind, so he can come up with new ideas from uncharted regions!