5 Moves to Prepare your Blog for the New Year
In exactly two weeks 2019 will be over! Are you ready for the new year?
Besides finishing up this year’s final tasks, I like to dedicate this time of year to prepare my blog for the new year in the best possible way.
Personally, let me tell you, that the more ready you are for the new year, the more likely you’ll be able to jumpstart your blog and reach your goals. The achievements I made over the past year, headed by the launch of my very first product – a premium digital course and the first of its kind, are a direct product of the meticulous preparation I did for my blog back in 2017. And the great project I've been working on for the last year {the one I can’t stop talking about and can’t wait to share with you !! 🤗} is a direct result of the preparations I made for the blog at the end of 2018.
To sum up, being prepared ahead of time definitely pays off!
Late last year, I wrote a pretty important post that includes 7 ways to improve your blog, and this new post is a kind of direct follow-up to it – so I encourage you to read it and make sure you’re on top of your game {and yes, even if you read it last year, it never hurts to refresh 😉}
This post includes 5 important moves which you can put into action, the kind you can complete right now, during these last two weeks of the year, and step into 2020 with your right foot.
So, without further ado – here are five moves to prepare your blog for the new year…
#1 Rethink the goals you set for your blog, and set new ones for the coming year
A lot can happen in a year. You've probably made many changes since the beginning of the year, or since the last time you set goals for your blog. It’s totally normal. Just like life which is so dynamic – as is your blog’s being and development – so it’s only natural that the ideas and goals you had in mind at first have changed with time. The end of the year is an opportunity to contemplate the purpose and goals you previously had in mind for your blog and rethink your route for the new year. Establishing up-to-date goals for your blog will optimize your focus and attention, and will help you make the most of your time and keep you motivated along the way.
#2 Prepare an annual plan of action for your blog
Setting up up-to-date goals for your blog? Great, but that's only the beginning. As you know, plans and reality don’t always go hand in hand, though no matter what – you can't get far without a clear plan. The next step is to create an annual work plan to implement your goals. I recommend setting 2-3 long-term goals that you will be working on throughout the year, and breaking them down into smaller and more fulfilling tasks that will help you reach your goals. {You’re welcome to read Tips for Better Time Management, where I explain my method to better organize my time and complete tasks like a pro}. Try and consider which are the actions that will make you meet the various goals you set for yourself this year – is it, for example, pre-planning posts? Delegation? Using automated scheduling tools? And integrate them into your annual work plan. If you feel like you could use some extra help, and don't really know how to build an annual business plan for your blog, you’re welcome to contact me for my one-on-one consulting services. I help other bloggers build and maintain successful blogs, based on the knowledge and experience I’ve gained throughout the years. Allow me to save you precious time and guide you in the right direction.
#3 Analyze your blog statistics
Google Analytics is a goldmine, so if you haven't used it until now to learn important lessons about your blog and to make your blog better and more successful – it's about time! When I say Google Analytics is one of the most important tools I use, I don't mean the superficial aspect of obsessively tracking your blog's traffic {though I do admit, been there done that 🙈}. Using Google Analytics can help you easily find out exactly who your target audience is, who is reading your blog, what kind of content has been the most relevant to them over the past year, how much time they’ve dedicated to reading a post, and how they got to the blog. After analyzing this data, you’ll have a better idea of who your target audience is the values they’re interested in, and the type of content you should create in the new year, and also – in what ways you should promote your blog. For example, here’s a brief analysis of my stats – 65% of my readership are Israeli while 35% are from abroad, mostly women between the age of 25-34, most of my readers {almost half!} reach my blog via organic search, while Pinterest also has an effect on my blog’s traffic, and posts on blogging and travels were most read on my blog this year. Once I analyze this data I can learn a lot about the blog and plan my annual strategy accordingly. Here are two conclusions from this information – 1) my target audience I defined for myself is in fact the target audience that reads and follows my blog, 2) It is worth my while to continue investing myself in using Pinterest as a marketing tool for the blog. Of course this is only the beginning 🙂
#4 Update your most important blog posts
Old posts, those already on your blog, are just as important as new posts. After all, that’s what’s so great about a blog – unlike advertising random content on social media like Facebook and Instagram, blog content doesn’t have such short shelf life or an expiration date. Thanks to the fact that websites {including blogs} are indexed into search engines, they have a long life. This means readers can even reach a post from two years ago! So, if you had all the time in the world, I’d recommend going through all of your old blog posts, make sure they are up to date and see where there is room to improve. But I’m realistic… as the famous meme says – ain't nobody got time for that. So instead of upgrading all or most of the blog posts you have published, I encourage you to pick the ten most popular posts on your blog this year {according to Google Analytics} and update those. What exactly does that mean? Make sure the information in the post is accurate, fix any typos, and add links to other relevant posts on your blog.
#5 Update or delete any plugins on your blog
WordPress plugins can be great, can’t they? They help us easily add all kinds of features to the blog without getting lost in coding and programming. But the truth is that they can also have drawbacks. Some of them will slow down your blog’s speed, and in other cases can expose your blog to bugs and break ins. Now, I’m not saying you should panic and delete all of your existing plugins. Definitely not. I myself have been using WordPress plugins and extensions since I started the blog, without them I couldn't get my blog where it is today. But I'm sure you have installed all kinds of plugins in the past, to test them, and you actually don't use them at all. You may have even forgotten about them completely, and probably have a plugins “cemetery” for those you never use or those that are inactive. To prepare your blog for the new year, I suggest you take a look at your plugins library installed on your blog, get rid of the ones you don’t have any use for, and update the ones that you do use.
Which of the moves mentioned in this post are you planning on putting into action to prepare your blog for the new year?
Have other suggestions for you blog? Leave me a comment below! 🙂
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