11 Helpful Spring Cleaning Tips For Your WordPress Website
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Spring is will be upon us before we know it. For a lot of us that means it’s time to clean out the closets, purge old items and update a room or two at home.
You’ve gotta admit after a good cleaning, the house feels fresh and you get this renewed vibe going.
The same can be true for your WordPress website. Spring break is also a good time to give your website a good cleaning.
I know, I know, it’s not like you’re not already busy. Why add one more chore to your list of things to do, right?
Believe me I know where you’re coming from. There are barely enough hours in the day to do the things we normally do.
But the way the Spring break reminds us to clean the house and change the batteries in our smoke detectors, we should also do some maintenance on our website to keep it updated and running smoothly.
What’s the saying – “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. It’s better to update your WordPress website now than to wait until something happens like your site getting hacked. And that can be a major headache.
Another reason you should spring clean your website is to attract new visitors. I’m not taking anything away from content. You still have to create kick a** content for your visitors. But before they read your blog post, their eyes are set on your website’s appearance – remember, presentation is everything!
It’s not like you have to do a major blog make-over or anything like that. In fact, you can do some or all of the following suggestions to spring clean your WordPress website.
11 Ways to Spring Clean Your WordPress Website
Here is a list of technical and cosmetic suggestions to spruce up your WordPress website.
#1 Check For Broken or Inactive Links
Be sure to check for broken links. Having broken links on your website can your website’s ranking on search engines. You can lose the trust of your audience and it can cost you a potential customer.
If you’re blogging three or more days a week you should check for broken links at least once a week.
But if it’s been a while since you’ve checked your links, now would be a good time to do so.
An easy way to do this is by installing the Broken Link Checker plugin.
This plugin monitors your WordPress website for broken links in your blog posts, web pages and even comments.
Once you install and activate the plugin, you’ll be notified of any broken links through email or on your WordPress dashboard.
Just click on ‘tools’ and you’ll see a number by ‘broken links’ that tell you how many broken links your website has.
Click on ‘broken links’ from the ‘tools’ tab and you’ll get a list of broken links that you can edit directly from the plugin page.
But if you’d rather not install another plugin you can check for broken links on Online Broken Link Checker website also for free.
#2 Check Those Plugins
You want your blog to have the latest bells and whistles and I’m sure you’re using plugins to get the features you want. But it’s important that you check those plugins and update them when needed.
My friend Bren wrote a blog post about what happens when you forget to update your plugins.
Look for a plugin that has multiple features like Jetpack*. Jetpack has features to protect your WordPress website, increase traffic, SEO tools and most importantly to engage with your visitors.
The free version of the plugin has features like free WordPress themes, lazy loading images and automated social media posting.
But if you really want to get the most out of Jetpack for your online business you can upgrade to get extra features like unlimited video CDN, no storage limit on backups and automated malware scanning and security fixes.
You also get more marketing tools like SEO preview tools and Google Analytics integration.
Here are other plugins I recommend for your WordPress website.
- WPForms*
- WPTasty* – for food blogs
- Revive Social*
- MonsterInsights*
- Akismet
- WP Smush
- Yoast SEO
You can find these plugins in the ‘plugins’ section of your WordPress dashboard.
#3 Update The Website Privacy Policy
If you have made the transition from a hobby blogger to a blogging business, make sure you update legal disclosures to let visitors know what data you’ll collect and how you intend to use it.
For example, if you’re starting a mailing list your privacy policy page should disclose that you will be collecting email address for your email marketing campaign.
If you need a privacy policy for your website, check out privacypolicies.com*. They have a free template and upgrades for as little as $39 (one-time fee), which is a great deal!
#4 Update Your About Me Page
If your about me page mentions anniversaries such as how long you’ve been a blogger, you’ll have to update that number every year along with ages of your kids, furbabies, etc. So take a look at your about me page and update it as needed.
Bonus tip: While you’re at it, review your bio to make sure it’s current.
#5 Update Your Gravatar Pic
If you’ve been using the same pic for a while now or if you’re using an image instead of your picture, think about updating your gravatar pic.
But if you still haven’t created one you can get one here. Remember, readers like to put a face to the name.
#6 Update Your Category List
Take a moment and go through your category list. If there are some categories there you’re no longer blogging about, consider removing them. Or you can update existing ones to sound more funky or hip with keywords within your niche.
I’ve been using Ubersuggest for several weeks and it’s now my favorite keyword search tool. When you enter specific keywords you’ll get hundreds of head terms as well as long-tail phrases. Not only that, you’ll know everything from volume to cost per click data. Did I mention it’s free?
#7 Remove or Change Ads
If you have a lot of ads on your site, now would be a good time to remove some of them. Too many ads takes the focus away from your content and worse it can drive visitors away.
If you’ve been using the same banner ads, check your affiliate networks for updated banners.
#8 Repurpose Old Blog Posts
Give you older posts new life by repurposing them. You can update the content, give it a new featured image or better than that turn them into an infographic, podcast or video.
#9 Archive Old Blog Posts
If you have old giveaways or coupon posts that have expired and you are no longer sharing them with your audience, you can archive these post so that they don’t appear in your blog roll.
And you know there’s a plugin for that! Archived Post Status plugin makes it easy to archive your posts without deleting them. WPBeginner has a fab tutorial that shows you how to install and configure this plugin.
#10 Change The Layout Of Your Website
Last but not least, you can change the layout of your theme. You can do something as simple as moving the sidebar to opposite side from where you currently have it or change it to a full page view.
But if you really want to change the look of your blog you can always install a new theme.
I’m a big fan of Studio Mommy’s premium themes. She has the most posh feminine themes for your WordPress website! This website is using the Her Exclusive theme. Gorgeous, right?
#11 Add Some New Graphics To Your Website
Last but not least, give your website and blog posts a fresh new look with new graphics.
And There You Have It
Those are the ways to spring clean your WordPress website and it won’t bust the budget.
Now let’s chat!
How often do you spring clean your website? Do you clean it during the spring season or whenver the mood strikes? What are some of the things you do to keep your website maintained?
Before you go, I would really appreciate it if you’d share this post on social media!
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