Tips for Readying your Blog for a New Month

Posted On: April 1st, 2007
Filed Under: Blogging, WordPress
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Seeing as how it's the first of the month today makes a great time for doing some blog housekeeping. Here are a couple of blogging reminders / tips for all you bloggers out there.

Backups: While you should certainly backup no less than weekly, the first of the month is an ideal time for a scheduled backup as well as archiving previous backups. I usually backup my database (using the WordPress Database Backup plugin) weekly and at the end of the month I burn a cd of all my backups as well as a copy of the directory structure - just in case.
Update: If you haven't updated your blogging software this is a great time to do it. You've just backed up your database and directory structure so now's one of the best times to update.
Review Last Month: Take a look at the last month's posts. Check to see if any posts are unfinished or could use some updating. I also like to check for any potential revenue streams that I could tap. If an old posts talks about a game or movie that hasn't been released yet I take the time to add an affiliate link. You can read more on the process in one of my older posts about monetizing your archives.
Review Last Year: ... not the whole year, just last years posts for the coming month. Lifehacker does a great series called "Retro Roundup: One Year Ago on Lifehacker" which is a weekly series. If you have year old posts this is a good time to review them (see the above item) as well as consider doing a followup. Sometimes posts and news stories dissappear - "whatever happened to" posts are great for sparking discussion and reminding you of things you were excited about one year ago.
Do an Earnings Report: I'll be writing one of these soon for Bill2me dot Com, Everton from Connected Internet already has his posted. At the end of each month it can really help to review the month's earnings and revenue streams. If you're trying to monetize your site this can help you decide what types of advertising programs you want to stick with and what programs you may want to drop.