If you are a smart blogger (and I know you are), you must be Googling out for the blog improvement ideas once in a while.
Yes. We all do the same.
We always try to make our blogs better.
Right?
And I will share a few blog improvement ideas that you can (and you should) implement within a 2-3 days of work on this year ending.
Officially, I call it “X-Mas Makeover for Blogs“.
But one question you might ask me, “Hey Subhabrata, when I can improve my blog anytime, what is the importance of giving my blog an X-Mas Makeover?”
Well. Let me answer you this question first.
WHAT’S X-MAS MAKEOVER (AND WHY MY BLOG NEEDS IT)
As the name implies, the X-Mas Makeover for Blogs is basically the implementation of a few important action plans that are generally carried out at the time of X-Mas.
It includes everything right from migrating your blog to a better hosting company to changing the complete theme of your blog.
But why the smart bloggers choose the X-Mas Time to make all these major changes to their blogs?
Since people take year ending vacations, leaves, etc this time, most bloggers experience significant traffic drops during this season.
So most smart content marketers make big changes to their blogs this time.
Because, if something goes wrong with their live blogs, for making those changes, the impact would be minimum on their business.
So it is the perfect time to give your blog a big X-Mas Makeover right away.
But how?
Don’t worry.
I will explain the whole process below in a step-by-step and actionable way.
So let’s get started with my blog improvement ideas for giving your blog an X-Mas Makeover.
PART-1: SOLIDIFY YOUR BLOG BASE
First thing first.
Before doing anything, you must make sure that your blog’s base is rock-solid.
Otherwise, all your efforts will be wasted.
You can solidify your blog’s base simply by taking a few easy steps.
1. Migrate Your Blog to A Better Hosting Company:
This is the first action that I strongly recommend you to take.
There are lots of web hosting companies in the market.
However, not all the companies are same.
I have explained the whole matter in My Advanced Web Hosting Selection Guide in details.
I suggest you to read this post first before proceeding further.
Think if your current web hosting company is providing you all of the benefits that are mentioned in my web hosting selection guide.
If not, it is now your time to migrate your blog to a better web hosting company.
If you are on a budget, check my Power Tools Page right away.
I have mentioned some essential (and affordable) tools there for all budgets.
Once you have selected your preferred web hosting company, just visit their official web site and contact them for support.
They will be more than happy to help you regarding the whole process.
Pro Tip: Try to choose such a web hosting company (like SiteGround) that offers Free Web Site Migration Service.
2. Give Your Blog a Better (and Faster) Premium Theme:
Are you still relying on Free WordPress Theme for making your fortune with blogging?
I am sorry, my friend.
This is not a good decision.
Free WordPress Themes are absolutely okay for amateur bloggers.
But the professional bloggers like you and I should not rely on them.
Why?
There are multiple reasons.
The 3 most basic issues I have faced with free themes are:
- Little Customization Options.
- Cluttered Coding and
- Very Limited Support.
So I don’t want to see you frustrated with those free themes.
In stead, I want to see you absolutely successful with blogging.
This is why, I suggest you to Buy a Premium WordPress Theme and give your blog a premium look this X-Mas.
If you like this blog and it’s design, you may Purchase Beginner Theme from the well reputed company Theme-Junkie.
3. Make Your Blog SSL Certified (for https://):
Making your blog SSL Certified is becoming mandatory for higher rank in SERP.
If you want to know more about the SSL Certificate in details, this link can help you.
According to Brian Dean from Backlinko,
So if you understand the Holistic SEO Approach, you should make your blog SSL Certified at your earliest.
Are you now thinking about the price of an “SSL Certificate“?
Relax.
My preferred Hosting Company SiteGround gives it for Free.
Visit SiteGround Official Website for details.
PART-2: AUDIT YOUR BLOG (AND TAKE ACTION)
After making the base of your blog super solid as per the steps given above, in this part we will conduct a full blog audit.
There are basically 3 kinds of blog audit.
They are:
4. SEO Audit:
In this step, you have to check (and optimize) everything regarding SEO of your blog.
You have to take care right from On-Page SEO to Off-Page SEO via Image SEO and lots more.
But the SEO Audit alone is a vast topic.
I have already published a few highly actionable guides to understand this better.
You can also check this article by Tom Schmitz to do your own 5-Minute SEO Audit.
If you are unable to handle the things yourself, you can hire any affordable team that can perform an SEO Audit for your blog.
5. Content Audit:
Although SEO Audit can hold a part of Content Audit, there are a few things that can not be taken care of regarding in-built content audit within SEO Audit.
In this step, you have to carry out each and every kind of content enhancement and rectification.
For example, you may follow the following list.
- Update Existing Contents with New Information.
- Delete Old and Useless Posts.
- Enhance UX for increasing Readers’ Engagement.
- Update your band’s Social Media Profiles.
- A/B Testing and Automation of E-Mail Marketing.
- Set up your Landing Page, Sales Funnel, Lead Magnets, etc.
- Make better images.
- Re-purpose your existing contents and
Lots more.
Once done perfectly, this step will boost up your level of confidence almost instantly.
6. Plugin Audit:
The final step of a Blog Audit is the Plugin Audit.
The science-backed Plugin Audit will tell you which plugins to use and which not to use.
To do a comprehensive plugin audit within your dashboard, download, install and activate a free (and safe) plugin – P3 Plugin Profiler.
This plugin will help you to Scan your Plugins and give you a comprehensive report for the Plugin Audit.
After scanning your plugins as per the method stated above, update all the existing and important plugins with all the latest patches.
Pro Tip: Always Deactivate and Delete unnecessary plugins from your WordPress Dashboard.
PART-3: PLAN FOR MAKING YOUR BLOG 2017 READY
If you have followed my 6 blog improvement ideas properly, your existing blog now has been alright from the present perspective.
Now it is time to plan for making your blog 2017 ready.
Here, I suggest you to proceed with another 3 types of plans.
7. Financial Planning:
In this step, create a proper 1-year financial plan for your blog.
This is important.
Because it will play a major role in breaking or making your business in 2017.
Now financial planning for a blog has 3 parts.
- Income Strategy: Plan and note down all the possible income strategies for your blog in this part. I have published a few Make Money Online Guidelines that can help you to develop the income strategy for your blog.
- Investment Plan: This part will contain the details of your Blog Investment Plan. For example, write down how much you are willing to spend on Blog Promotion, Lead Generation, Freelancers, etc. In other words, prepare a general budget for your blog in this part.
- Savings Plan: Not only your blog. You and your family have to survive (specially, if you are a Full-Time Blogger like Me), too. And that needs some money in your Savings Account. Therefore, also make a plan for savings from blogging income well in advance.
If you can follow all the parts of a happy financial planning for blogging, you will be surprised to see the growth of your blog over 2017.
8. Content Planning:
If you are not completely new in the blogosphere, you have probably heard multiple times that,
So no matter how much you invest in blogging or, how many hours you or, your team spend on designing a blog beautifully, if you can not create valuable contents regularly, none can save your blog from a giant failure.
I do not want to discourage you.
All I want you to see as a Successful and Renowned Blogger, that I have mentioned already.
But to produce interesting, valuable, trending and consistent contents, you have to create your own Content Plan.
All you need a Google Sheet to make your very own content plan.
To keep things simple, just put Post Titles along with Focus Keywords followed by Probable Date of Publish in a Google Sheet and produce top-notch contents without being worried about the consistency of your blog posts.
9. Promotion Planning:
Here, we have arrived at the final step.
In the present era of content marketing,
Yes. After creating a quality post, you must have to promote hard.
Otherwise, you would not be able to get the proper ROI back from your content marketing efforts.
They are several ways to promote your blog posts effectively.
They include:
- Social Media Marketing.
- E-Mail Marketing.
- Forum Marketing.
- Offline Marketing.
and lots more.
You can either concentrate on all the promotional channels at once or, you can do it one after another.
Pro-Tip: Create tailor-made contents for each and every media. For example, create Photo Posts on Pinterest whereas, you have to create Videos for YouTube.
MY RECOMMENDED TOOLS AND SERVICES:
Here are a few Tools and Services that I strongly recommend you to use for super charging your blog in 2017 with the blog improvement ideas discussed here.
SiteGround: They provide fast, secure and reliable web hosting and domains with Free SSL Certificate.
Migrate Your Existing Blog to SiteGround.
Theme-Junkie: Theme-Junkie provide beautifully designed and cleanly coded premium themes at a very reasonable price.
Buy Best and Affordable WordPress Themes.
SEMRush: SEMRush is an Advanced and All-in-One Keyword Research Tool that is being used by top bloggers since its inception in the market.
Signup for A Free SEMRush Account.
GetResponse: Supercharge your blog’s revenue with E-Mail Marketing. GetResponse is a reliable, multi-functional Bulk E-Mail Service.
Signup for a Free GetResponse Account.
That’s it.
CONCLUSION:
I have shared a few of my blog improvement ideas that can give your existing blog an X-Mas Makeover.
Hope you have find the overall guide easy to follow.
I have also shared some of my favorite Tools and Services that can help you to give an X-Mas Makeover followed by cough and cold.
All you need to take action to implement these blog improvement ideas for making your blog 2017 ready with a big X-Mas Update.
If you like this post, please Subscribe to Our E-Mail Newsletter (Free) for getting latest posts on Ethical Blogging and also, please share this post among your beloved ones.
Finally, just let me know what do you think about the whole idea of X-Mas Makeover (with these blog improvement ideas) by leaving a quick comment below.
See you in next post.
Blog Improvement Ideas Featured Image Credit: Pablo
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well detailed post and very helpful
Hi Rajiv!
Glad to know you found this post useful.
I have read so many articles or reviews regarding the blogger lovers but this
article is truly a nice paragraph, keep it up.