5 Blog Maintenance Tasks You Can Do Right Now

Sometimes writing a new blog post isn't something that you always want to do. I don't always feel inspired and motivated to write a blog post, so I work around my blog instead. For the first few years of my blogging journey, I never considered maintaining my blog. I was so focused on writing new posts and thought it would be good enough. 

Blog maintenance is something that I find always seems to slip through the cracks. I have a goal of getting on top of it all but often time I will convince myself that I will do it tomorrow or another day. However, with some time on my hands lately, I have started getting on top of it and have found it's so important to maintain your blog. It's almost as crucial as creating new content.

Why you should maintain your blog?

I don't know if you notice this but blogging is like a never-ending job and you will always find something that needs updating. Blogging is a lot like admin work to me instead of actually writing content. Blog maintenance actually makes a lot of difference and it definitely makes sure your blog is alive in terms of its usage, accessibility, and relevancy. 

So if you're like me and procrastinate quite a bit when it comes to keeping your blog alive, these tips are for you! Even if you're not, then these are still good practices and will help improve the health of your blog. 

Update and tidy up old posts

I have recently started editing and updating my old posts. Oh boy, it's been a long and slow journey, but I am getting there! I have finished updating 2015-2017 posts and I have a few years left and hopefully, all will be updated by the end of this year.

Updating old content is one of the best and easiest ways you can update your blog. Evergreen content can become outdated if they're not updated from time to time. If you have long-lasting posts on your blog, it's a good idea to update them now so it keeps their quality up as you grow and that also means that you can still keep the content relevant.

Ways to update your blog:

1. Add links or references
2. Check spelling and grammar
3. Update images
4. Reformat posts
5. Re-write

Some bloggers (including me) take this task in particular as a spring clean activity because it's satisfying but it can get pretty overwhelming, I will tell you that. So if you don't have any idea on which posts to update first, I would say the ones that are already ranking on search engines are a good place to start.

Check and fix broken links

Checking broken links is a task that I, most of the time, don't look forward to. However, broken links are bad for SEO and user experience. You can use this broken link checker to inspect them. I love to have the site running in the background while I do other things!

Keeping up with broken links is important and I would recommend doing it at least once a month because they can pile up super fast. I find that a lot of my broken links come from comments left on my blog and I will not hesitate to delete those comments that have links leading to a 404-error page.

You might want to keep on top of some pages or sites you have linked to in the past because they may also be broken links now. I'd say remove the links or replace them with other relevant ones.

Insert links to old/ new relevant posts

Internal linking is your best friend. It helps drive traffic to other posts and keeps readers on your blog for a longer period of time. Remember to use them where you can.

I have never done this before in my first few years of blogging and truthfully, I was hurt. I mean, my bounce rate (and among other things) was certainly hurt. Now, I would absolutely recommend this to keep your readers clicking and stay on for a long time.

This technique is so easy to boost SEO. For example, read my latest empties post (see what I did there?) and I was surprised at the number of posts in my blog that I could link that is, of course, related to the products I was talking about in that empties post. If you have never done this, you should definitely do it.

Update your about page

While this isn't a huge thing, it's definitely something that needs updating because about pages can be outdated quite fast. I would say updating them twice a year should be good. For example, I redefined my blogging niche in 2020 and I am not a uni student anymore so that's a sign for me to get my About page updated. 

If you've recently had a birthday or aren't in the city you were once based in, I am suggesting getting your About page updated right now. You sure don't want to give inaccurate information to your readers, especially the new ones. 

Return/ reply comments

This isn't something that directly helps your blog but if someone has kindly taken the time to leave you a well-thought-out comment or one that asks you something, then it is only right to reply to them. Communicating with your readers is a good habit to get into.

Replying to comments is something that I am pretty good at because I can't not look at my comments tab on the dashboard — it is unavoidable and I love getting new comments! Who doesn't? However, if you're someone that gets a lot of comments daily, I'd recommend setting aside some time every week just for this and don't procrastinate on it. 

Bonus! Other tasks you can do:

All the ones mentioned above are the ones that I think are more important. There are obviously many other things you can do based on whether it is needed for your blog. 

1. Add ALT text to images. I have so many images that have 0 ALT text added and this is way on top of my priority list for now. 
2. Delete blog posts you don't want anymore/ revert to draft. You might have old content that you're not proud of anymore. If you don't want them to be seen by others, delete them or make them private.
3. Update your links page. I have my own links page that's only visible on Instagram and Twitter. You can't find this anywhere on the blog but I try to update that regularly. If you have related links to update your followers, do that.
4. Add search/ meta descriptions to your posts. You'd be surprised to see there are a lot of bloggers who left this part out. I once was but not anymore. This is so important for search engines. Make your content visible and searchable.
5. Check spam comments. I rarely get spammy comments but this one is still inevitable. Spam comments are a lot like broken links, they can build up quickly if your posts rank on search engines.

Regularly maintaining your blog can help you to avoid SEO issues. I think it's always a good idea to update your posts so that new readers have the most up-to-date information. I hope these 5 blog maintenance tasks will keep your blog tidy and running smoothly! Good luck <3

Do you regularly do blog maintenance tasks? What blog maintenance tasks are on your list right now?