Many people often make common mistakes when starting their own blog and have trouble making the site and posts consistent once they get into the groove. Every beginner blogger finds themselves needing to clean out those random posts you had before you found a topic to write about, after your views change, or you realize that your boss is reading what you write.
- 1. Catagorize – Bloggers never give categories any importance until they realize it helps others (and themselves) navigate the site. Most blogging platforms throw posts in the “default” category, so chances are the you’ll have many “general” posts from when you first started.
- 2. Reduce the number of categories you have to a handful – Here’s an important one, if you have more than 20 categories, it’s probably too much. Start deleting those categories that have only a post or two. In general, by default, they’ll end up in the “general” category.
- 3. Move the posts in the “general” category to the ones they belong in – Once all of those random posts are in the oversized default category, start going through them one by one and editing them so they fall in their new, more specific categorical home.
- 4. As you move posts from the default category to new ones, delete the posts that really don’t have a place – As you start digging into the blog-past, you’ll encounter completely random, off-topic, or plain stupid things you wrote. Delete those ones that just don’t belong – chances are, if you don’t want to read it, then neither does anyone else.
- 5. Do a search of the keywords, people, or events you don’t want anyone seeing – When a new blog is created, we feel a personal touch with it. It isn’t until our BFF becomes our frenemy do we realize it might be time to remove touchy references.
- 6. Use plugins that provide links in posts for you – By now, it’s getting harder to place link backs within your own posts because you forget them or focus on the same ones. WordPress, Typepad, and the other big blogging platforms have “related posts” plugins. Use them and make sure a few links related to each post appear underneath ever new post. Have the technology help you our.
- 7. Link back to your own categories – Can’t find the exact old post, or don’t have one? Direct readers to your categories and link back to them instead from time to time.
- 8. Find out who links to you and show them some love – You need to find out what posts, categories, and interesting topics not to delete. Getting a second opinion from the online community is a must.
Most of these tips are for those bloggers who want to expand their readership and not personally attached to every little thing they write. Even those bloggers out there who write solely for themselves will appreciate some help navigating their own work after years of material piles up.
