How to Refresh Your Blog for the New Year

When it comes to blogging, we can get set in our ways right? We may tend to do the same thing over and over. Or we are still highlighting our Thanksgiving posts! With the new year coming up in less than three weeks, it’s a perfect time to take a review of your blog and give it a makeover it! For Blogmas Day Twenty, I’m show you how to refresh your blog for the new year!

I know for me, that when I update and refresh my blog, it makes me feel more inspired and motivated to keep writing. With many people having time off in December, it’s also a perfect way to take advantage of that extra time to put into your blog.

*Some of the below links are affiliate links and are at no additional cost to you. I have only included links to products that I have used myself and would recommend to others.*

Remove Holiday Highlights

On the home page of my blog, you’ll notice I have a big “Blogmas” Section. Not exactly perfect for the new year right? So while I’m not going to delete my holiday related posts, I’m just not going to make them on the front page of my blog anymore! This is a great thing to keep in mind as the seasons change and the year goes on. You may want to switch up your focus on the home page with each new holiday!

Focus on New Year Posts

I would say soon after Christmas, start showcasing all of your New Year’s posts! It could be about starting fresh, your resolutions, anything related to a new year! This should go on the homepage or where people can easily find it. I’m going to swap out my “Blogmas” section for something more related to 2019! When I think of refreshing a blog, I think of adding what is new! So out with the old and in with the new posts!

Update About Me

Have you ever taken a look at your “About Me” section and saw that your age was wrong or it just didn’t reflect who you are anymore? If you just graduated college this past winter, maybe switch up that you are a college graduate! Maybe you’re a new mom and haven’t updated that you have 3 kids instead of 2! You may have a super old photo in this section too, don’t forget to update that too!

Go Through SEO

You want to start the new year off with a bang right? Take some time over the break and make sure all your SEO is in place. This could be going through old blog posts when you didn’t even know SEO was a thing or interlinking old posts! This can actually help your blog to better in the new year!

Start Something New

Want to change up the actual blogging for next year? Start brainstorming ideas for a new series on your blog! This could include “Thursday Thoughts” or “Motivational Monday” or even “Friday Favorites”! This can be a great way to get some more ideas flowing for new blog posts throughout the year and give your readers something to look forward to every week.

Add Affiliate Links and New Pins

This is something that I tend to forget to update. If you’ve joined an affiliate program or changed programs, go back through your posts and add in links! When I first started blogging, I wasn’t apart of any program, so now I’ve been going through and refreshing in those affiliate links!

Find out what blog posts did really well for you this past year and create new pins for those ones. Perhaps your pins don’t match your branding that you now have, time to create some new ones! I mention more about this topic in this blog post here!

Fix Broken Links/Long Links

Let me tell you, my hyperlinks looked absolutely horrible when I first started blogging. They were super long and included a ton of “slug words”-words like the, or, for, etc. Take some time to make sure that your links actually work. Read up a bit on how to change links so anything linking to that post will be redirected! Another way that I can check this is with a broken link checker plug in.

Refresh Your Brand

One way that I love to refresh my blog is to change up anything that I wasn’t loving about my blog! If you are sick of the color scheme that you created, find one that you love! While you shouldn’t be changing things up too often, it’s totally fine to do so every once in a while! If you aren’t loving your home page lay out-give it a bit of a refresh! I did this at the end of November, and I absolutely love it now!