I’ve had my blog since 2009 and I never thought once of properly cleaning up my blog till this month. I started noticing the slow downs, drop in traffic and a huge influx of spam injections but just never had the time to take action but it needed to be done, much like a car needing proper maintenance to keep running, so does a blog. Plus, my blog is part of my online identity, it shows what I can share but also of who I am. It wouldn’t look good if my blog’s performance was shoddy.

After some hard research I started taking steps in making my blog perform better and so far I’ve been noticing some results. Below are the same steps I’ve taken. I do use WordPress, but if you are using another type of blogging platform you might need to look into how that can be properly maintained.

What are some of your blogging tips?

Proper SEO Integration

In the beginning, I never thought of applying SEO (search engine optimization) into my blog. Now after being in the field as an analyst I know that it is essential if you want both search engines and users to find you blog’s content. I went back to the beginning and added fresh content, image optimization, proper metadescription and Title tags, Thanks Yoast SEO. If you need help understanding SEO, there are lots of available resources online. I use MOZ, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal as my resources. Having Google Analytics can help you monitor your efforts.

Delete Your Post Revisions

I found that if you revise your blog posts WordPress tends to save the previous revisions, this tends to build up on your blog’s database causing it to slow down. There is a web development way of removing the old posts but adding in some proper coding but I found just adding a plugin is just as effective. I used Better Delete Revision and I managed to erase over 3,000 revised posts? Now my blog’s page load speed is way better than before.

Add Security To Your Blog

This is very very important. If you love your blog you want to protect it like gold in Ft. Knox. I noticed after linking Google’s Search Console, that spam has been attacking my urls. I quickly investigated these bugs and got rid of them. I did add a nifty plugin called WordFence that helps monitor these attacks plus build a firewall to prevent any hacking attacks. Other plugins I included limits the amount of time someone tries to enter the password and spam authentication. I also added https to protect my blog during web browsing (work with your host on this). Normally, this is more towards ecommerce but now it is important for every type of site plus Google can give you slight boost in search value because it shows trust and authenticity.

Adding AMP

AMP (accelerated mobile pages) is a new Google feature that will allow your site content be uploaded through mobile devices quickly. Mobile is essential now plus Google will offer you a boost in search value. For my blog I just added a plugin called AMP.

Social Media

If you’re not using social media to spread your blog content, do it now.

Caching

Basically the backend of blogs uses coding to present what people are seeing. Caching just organizes the codes to make the page loads faster online. Plugins are available for this, here are some popular cache plugins.