Friday, October 16, 2015

Rock the Blog: Blog Health Checkup! 9 Things Every Blogger Should Do This Week


Rock the Blog is a "How To" for bloggers!

From graphics to html and all kinds of bloggery goodness!

Since I'm based on Blogger most posts will revolve around the Blogger platform though some ideas may apply to Wordpress as well.

A Blog Health Checkup!


Not a "how to" this time but a bloggery reminder of sorts. 

Eight things I think all bloggers should check in on every handful of months.
A blog health check if you will :D These aren't in any particular order...

1. Make sure your blog is linked in your profiles for Blogger, Wordpress and Disqus. So important! It just takes a couple minutes to check for each platform and can help a lot. Especially if you aren't using a blog specific screen name. I have like 8 Jennifer's that stop by and comment. If they just go by Jennifer or even Jennifer Last Name and don't have a link to their blog in their Disqus profile...I've got no clue. Sometimes I know the name but just can't place the blog (a lot of blogs out there have similar names too! eeps!) If you aren't sure if yours is linked in Disqus click on your name. It'll have your blog link in the profile.

2. Spruce up your Request/Policy page. Make sure it's up to date and all forms (if you use them) are still working and accurate. 

3. Check your menu/side bar links! I've been by a few blogs (and had it happen to mine) where a link broke for whatever reason. Every 6 months or so I try to flip through mine really quick just to make sure everything still works.

4. Update your Netgalley profile/feedback. Okay so in my other life I work for a few authors and part of that is Netgalley approvals and goodness some days it's not easy. It's a great idea to update your profile/stats on there every 4-6 months so they accurately show the growth of your blog. And submit that feedback! Getting those reviews in can really improve chances of future approvals.

5. Check your feed! Lots of people use feed readers to keep up with blogs instead of email updates. It's a good idea to check on your feeds now and again. I've had a couple blogs I thought went dormant only to find out they were still active and their feeds had just gone wonky so they weren't showing up on Bloglovin or Feedly. This is especially important if you've had a change in platform. 

6. Make sure your blog template AND posts are backed up. It's incredibly easy on Blogger and can save a lot of heartache in case bloggery disaster strikes and your blog goes down or has issues. I did a how to a while back on that (here). I try to do this once a month or so. 

7. Update Image Sliders! If you have image sliders for blog tour graphics or blogs you love give those a glance over every once in a while. I've seen so many that have broken images because the blog they belong to has removed an image from their blog so it no longer works if you've grabbed their code. 

8. Check over your social media icons/links. Make sure they're up to date and easy to find (front page if you can! don't hide those suckers). Are all the links and images still accurate?

9. Update your social media profiles. While this isn't a huge thing it is a nice thing to do. If I see a blog on FB and want to check out their actual blog and go to their about section and try to click through only to get a broken link...ahhhh! Make it easy for people to find you and get to your actual blog. Check Goodreads, FB, Twitter, etc and make sure that info is up to date!


Okay. So that's my top 9 things I think all bloggers should check over this week! Most of it only takes a couple minutes to make sure everything is a-okay. So take 30 minutes or so and knock some of these out and then every handful of months give them another look-see!

What "Blog Health" items would YOU add to the list?





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[Are you a blogger? Leave your link so I can visit you too! ~Anna]

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I always enjoy hearing what YOU think so come on and leave a comment. Everyone's welcome :) And feel free to leave comments on old posts. I'll check in on you there too :)

Bloggers don't forget to leave your links!
~Anna

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