For most blogs, it’s the sidebar often gets the messiest the quickest. With the abundance of buttons, badges and gadgets available online, it’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to put them all on display. Unfortunately, having too many widgets can slow down the loading of your blog especially for people still using dialup service. Spring clean your sidebar by only displaying what is absolutely necessary. Move other items to a separate page and link to it.

Another thing you can do to spring clean your blog is to go through your list of plugins and delete the ones you are not using. While you are at it, it is also a good time to update your blog software to the most current version. Using old software puts your blog at risk for being hacked. Additionally, most software programmers add additional functionality that may negate the need for many of the plugins you currently use.

Removing dead links and adding current information that may be relevant is a great way to spring clean old blog posts. Use tools like Website Goodies or W3C Link Checker to find broken links. If you’ve noticed that your writing skills have improved since you started blogging consider revising your old articles so that they sound better. Doing this can inspire ideas for new posts which will give you an opportunity to link to those old articles and send a fresh surge of traffic to them.

While you are going through the pages on your blog, optimize your web site SEO. Do some keyword research and try to include those keywords in article titles and text. Organize and rename the categories so they are more search engine friendly. Doing this will usually result in a better presence in, and increased traffic from, the search engines.

Spring clean your blogroll. It’s a sad fact that many bloggers never make through their first year of blogging. Although you may know that an online acquaintance is not blogging anymore, you may have forgotten to take their link off your site. Take this time to delete invalid links and to add links to new favorites.

Setting aside a few hours to spring clean your blog will result in a site that runs more efficiently and is much nicer to visit. Get into the habit of updating your blog at least once a year and you’ll find that your website will only get better and better.

About the Author

Delish iBusiness provides internet business development tips that move you from daydreams to profit. Business ideas, marketing advice, tools, and more for building a delish online business.

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