clean

Earlier today, BlogWorld asked on Facebook:

Do you blog on the weekends? If so, does it significantly raise your traffic?

So far, most of the answers have indicated that no, many of you do not blog on weekends, either because you think that those posts won’t get as much traffic or because you need a break from work. Obviously, I do blog on weekends – this post is evidence – but I understand why some people don’t. If I could make a suggestion though? Use the weekends, or another day when you’re not doing writing-related blog work, to take out your blogging trash.

In a traditional job, your office trash can fills up with papers and junk during the work week, and if you (or your janitor) didn’t empty it, your office would soon be overrun with garbage. Unfortunately, that sometimes happens with our blogs. Readers don’t necessarily see it, but your dashboard can become pretty cluttered in a hurry.

So, if you don’t blog on weekends, take a moment to do the following work on your blog:

• Approve pending comments, empty your spam comments, and make sure that none of the comments that got through are actually spam.
• Delete any posts that are in draft form, but which you have no intention of actually completing.
• Clean up your categories. Simplicity is good, but your blog’s navigation also needs to be functional. Use the parent function to create a better hierarchy than the one you have right now.
• Update plugins has necessary and get rid of any that do not work or that you are no longer using.
• Delete any pages you aren’t using and don’t need anymore.
• Read over you About page and update it if necessary. Add a more recent picture if the one posted is over a year old.
• Connect your blog to any new profiles you may have since you first started your blog.

You can extend this “taking out the trash” exercise to your social networking profiles as well. If you’re anything like me, your Facebook page, Twitter profile, and other accounts start to get dusty every few months, not from lack of use, but from lack of updating the information listed. Clean house this weekend.

If your blog is spic-and-span, so other behind-the-scenes work you could get done this weekend include:

• Brainstorming post ideas for the coming week.
• Return emails.
• Retweet others’ links on Twitter.
• Rearrange your sidebar to get rid of widgets that aren’t working for your blog.
• Catch up on your feed reading.
• Write some guest posts and approach other bloggers.
• Email your mailing list with some links to your favorite recent blog posts on your own blog and other blogs.
• Do some research on things to do in Vegas while attending BlogWorld!
• Comment on others’ blogs.
• Post a poll on your blog.
• Design some business cards if you don’ t have them.
• Delete emails you don’t need and organize the ones you do.

And don’t forget to have some fun this weekend. I really agree with the comment that we all need to take a break sometimes. So, take out the trash, but relax a little too!

What are you doing to clean up your blog this weekend?

Allison Boyer is a writer for BWE’s blog and the owner/manager of After Graduation. She has done some cleaning up on her own blog and is now heading out to enjoy the sun.

Image credit: sxc.hu