If you are a blogger, then you must know that the month has arrived where you are most likely to hire the most noise from the traffic. It is mainly because the holiday season is here and people just want to spend some time with their loved ones. Hence we suggest that if you’re going to showcase your skills, then no month is better than December. So don’t wait. Just prepare and publish your blog this new year.
Well, now you might be wondering what you can do to prepare your blog for the new year. So, there are a plethora of things which you can do, and the best part about these things is it will move the need for the traffic of your blog and income.
8 tasks to prepare your blog for the new year
Eradicate the clutter
If you have been into blogging for quite some time now, then we suggest that you must take some time off and declutter the blog.
- Themes – It is worth to look into different themes if you are using WordPress, and you must all think if you really need these themes or not.
- Plugins – You should no doubt keep the plugins that are useful but even remove those which you find are not beneficial for you. By doing so, you might improve the page load times.
Additionally, you must look forward to removing the clutter from the front end of your website. The only reason you must remove clutter from your blog is that clutter proves to be a distraction to your readers. You are surely going to have a hard time achieving some goals like selling products, displaying ads, etc., if you have clutter. Clutter not only makes the readers feel fatigued but also encourages paradox of choice.
You are most likely to get the same feeling when you visit a restaurant that offers a plethora of dishes. As you have a wide selection, you really wonder what to eat. Hence we say that readers are most likely to take action if you limit your options and decrease the clutter. Most of the mess can be found in the sidebar. You can think about removing these:
- Tag clouds – As a user, you might find it too useful, but they aren’t quite useful for readers when it comes to viewing perspective.
- Blogrolls – No doubt, it is essential to link with other bloggers, but you always need to do it in context form.
Give a new look to your blog
First of all, you need to know that blog design plays a crucial role. Besides the focus on readability, you also need to ensure that your blog has a contemporary look. You are most likely to find out that your blog has an outdated design when it starts growing. You can use different options available too, and it mostly depends on the platform you use. There are a plethora of options available for bloggers if you use WordPress.
Look for broken links and fix them
It is quite possible that you have a bunch of broken links on your website. Also, it would be best if you looked for some technical errors which need instant attention. It is because the page that you link to doesn’t exist anymore, or there is a possibility of a change in the URL of the page. Irrespective of the reason, broken links are pretty for user experience, and they are also ineffective for search engines. Hence it would be best if you fixed them, use this to check for broken links.
To improve the performance, you need to run an audit of the content
As of now, there are a plethora of blog posts on the site that are underperforming. When content doesn’t perform, it can present in various ways:
When content gets a traffic spike they flatline without any hassle.
For the time being, the content gets only some rank and gets some significant time, and then when the search engine goes for the update, traffic mostly drops off. Additionally, there are chances content will generate more income than ever.
Some of the steps required are:
- Weed out the underperforming content – You can look at the past traffic and compare the same with the previous year. Ideally, most of the audits focus only on the traffic found on the search engine.
- Understand why the content doesn’t perform – It is one of the most challenging parts. All you need to do is analyze all posts because the devil lies in the details. Some of the factors include badly written headlines, poorly formatted content, broken buttons, etc.
One of the biggest reasons why your content is not performing because your content is not getting much traffic. All you need to do is focus on the traffic.
Learn something about your audience
You can serve your audience better if you know about them. Above all, it means your blog will increase. You will be earning more if you are smart with your monetisation, and it is way more than just traffic.
Learn a new skill to enhance your earning
The perfect time to start learning something new is a new year. Each gift you know will help you make something extra. You can either add value to your business or to someone else’s. Some of the options available here:
- Social media strategy
- Content strategy
- Web design
- Copywriting
- SEO
- Email marketing
The key to success here is to learn and implement it in your blog. Above all, you need to know that experience is essential.
For the new year, you need to plan a social media giveaway
When you offer giveaways, then you must know that they can help you generate a lot of engagement on social media. You can just win a simple prize.
For the next 12 months, you need to plan out the context
There is quite a possibility that you have some content ideas for the year in the pipeline. You need to know that content plans work best if you plan them in advance. Additionally, you need to know that the best time to plan your content ready for the new year is the holidays. You can easily do it with Google sheets.
There are a plethora of ways you can prepare for the new year of blogging, and we have discussed a lot of them here. By using these tips, you can easily prepare your blog for the new year. Blogging is the way to go.
