Tuesday night I did something that I’m betting almost no one else ever does. Probably most people don’t have to do it as much as I do, but it’s something that they should think about doing in some way every once in awhile.
 by Pete Birkinshaw |
I spent a few hours doing maintenance on this blog. I think this is post #540, and I went through every post on this blog, looking for my ads that might be missing or that might have been altered in some fashion. As you know, I have either an affiliate link or a product at the end of almost every single post. I put products there because I’ve tried to figure out the types of things visitors to this blog might like every once in awhile. The thing isn’t so much that they might want to buy that particular thing as much as they might want to buy something similar to it. They, or you, can still click on that product link, look around the site for other things, and I still get paid from that.
However, what happens every once in awhile is one of three things. One, those advertisers are expired, which means those links are dead. Two, the images have changed and, though the link would still work, without a visual product who’d even think about clicking on it? And three, that product is discontinued, and therefore I have to change products.
So, I spent some time doing that. The next maintenance project will be activating Broken Link Checker, just to check all the links on the site, then deactivating it again. Some of you might remember when I wrote about that plugin and others that kept giving me server errors. It works great, but I don’t keep it running all the time on any of my blogs.
How often do you go back and check things on your blog to make sure they’re still working properly? It might take you some time, but most of you don’t have close to as many posts as I have, so go ahead, take some time, and while you’re at it, think about optimizing or monetizing your old posts in some fashion. Remember, the entire product of your blog helps your blog to rank better, and better rankings means potentially more visitors.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
Thanks for that Mitch, there’s nothing I like more than a bit of Candy 😀
As for blog maintenance,that’s something I detest which is why I go for the rotating ads.
I still get emails of some ad that’s been terminated, but I ain’t about finding which post it’s from.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..Googles Latest PR Update In Time For Halloween =-.
Well Sire, I’ve got the rotating ads on the side and at the top of each individual post, but not at the bottom of each post. Sometimes I just want to show a product, and I took a look at how CJ does that and you either get everything, which means you can’t format it (I certainly tried, but it defies your code) or you get a product but without a name or description of any kind, and that’s not too good either.
Yeah, I know Mitch, but that’s all too high maintenance for me mate. Who knows, one day I may find that ad and change it, but for now I’ll just put up with the annoying emails.
You know what would make it easier though? If they supplied the link to the offending ad.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..How To Turn Off The Internet On The iPhone =-.
Sire, I’ll admit that would help some, especially with the Google Advertising Network stuff.
Thanks Dennis. Same with sometimes quoting links from newspapers; those things disappear overnight.
Mitch, I’m with you–checking links on old posts is essential to maintaining credibility and ensuring that you don’t miss opportunities to make money based on your affiliate links or directing folks to your subscription lists. I’ve got over 630 posts and it’s also a good idea to check your old posts for content that you can link to again to provide site depth or use as featured content in your sidebar.
.-= Iceman Baldy´s last blog ..Pew Study: Blacks and Hispanics 44% of online status updaters | Technicultr =-.
Iceman, I’ve done some of that, but I now have to say that I’m very disappointed in the Broken Link Checker plugin. For some reason, it thinks every link to my business blog is a bad one, yet every link works. I’m now wondering if there’s a glitch in the program; good thing I’m rarely running that sucker.
But I do, every once in awhile, look for other posts to do some internal linking. One of these days, if Google ever gives me back my page rank, we’ll see if any of that stuff has actually worked.
hi Mitch. Thanks for sharing this. It’s really hard you know, to maintain a blog. Well, not hard actually. It’s just sometimes I forgot, or too lazy to check back about the posts I’ve posted before.