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ProBlogger: Your Epic End-of-Year Blog Audit Checklist: Where You’ve Been and Where You’re Headed!

ProBlogger: Your Epic End-of-Year Blog Audit Checklist: Where You’ve Been and Where You’re Headed!

Link to ProBlogger

Your Epic End-of-Year Blog Audit Checklist: Where You’ve Been and Where You’re Headed!

Posted: 30 Dec 2016 05:00 AM PST

Your Epic End-of-Year Blog Audit Checklist | Get it now on ProBlogger.netIt’s time. There’s not a single day left of 2016 to blog on! You’ve done all you can, and you should be proud – no step, no matter how small, is too small. Had a gangbusters year? Good on you! Had a small year? I bet you’re further than you used to be! Now that’s progress.

The best way to look over all you’ve done and gather your thoughts about where you’d rather be next year is to go through your blog and social media and audit your performance. What went right (and how can you replicate that)? What went wrong? What felt yuck and what are you excited about doing again in 2017?

Last year’s audit checklist was so popular I thought I’d update it for this year and send you off on your merry way with a drink and a pen to revel in your year of blogging. May the force be with you!

Feel free to download the PDF checklist if you’re a paper-and-pen kind of blogger – you can download it here: problogger-end-of-year-blog-audit-checklist.

How to Do an End-of-2016 Blog Audit

Grab a pen and notebook, a fresh Google Doc, a spreadsheet if you're into that sort of thing, or anything else you're happy to take notes on or in, and go through each section of your blog thoroughly. What worked, what didn't, what did you hate, what will you change for next year?

As science historian James Burke said once "you can only know where you're going if you know where you've been". True dat.

"You can only know where you're going if you know where you've been." – James Burke

[Tweet That!]

So let's get stuck in.

Content:

You're going to have to look at some stats for this, so open your WordPress Jetpack or Google Analytics and be prepared to dive in. First though, a look through the posts themselves:

  • How long were posts? Did you have a variety of word lengths? All long? All short? Which performed better? What would you say your average post word count would be?
  • What were the most popular posts? Overall, and for each category of your blog?
  • What type of posts worked? What resonated with your audience?
  • What fell flat, or just quite didn't make it?
  • Did you write to your niche? Or did you branch out? Was that a wise choice?
  • Were you helpful?
  • What posts got the most comments/emails? Which one seemed to touch a nerve in your audience?
  • What was shared most?
  • What did you enjoy writing?
  • Where are you sourcing images? Are you making or taking your own? Could you start? What other options are there (you can find a selection of places that have collections of free, no-attribution images here), what program are you using to create and personalise your images? Is it enough or should you try something new? What are your image sizes? Are they optimal? Have you changed blog layout and now some of them are poorly sized? Make a note of them so you can update later with a better image.
  • Which day of the week got the most traffic? What were you publishing on those days? Was it consistent with your brand?
  • Was your overarching theme this year consistent with your brand?
  • What search terms got the most people to your blog? are you providing content for them?
  • Does each post have a good image that's formatted correctly, a keyword-rich headline, and is it pleasant to the eye? Is there enough white space, and are there calls to action where necessary?
  • Were you providing enough value?

How to Do an End of 2015 Blog Audit: everything to set you up for a year of successful blogging

Back End

The nitty-gritty that we usually ignore unless something has gone wrong. Do a cleanout!

  • Are your plugins still working for you? What can you delete? What needs updating?
  • What do you have as a 404 error message? Can you make it more useful to the reader who finds themselves there?
  • Do you have broken links? (one way to find out is to use a broken link checker, or install a plugin that will do it for you). Can you update them?
  • What is your SEO plan? Are you inserting key words in all the right places? If you have Yoast installed, is there a green light on the majority of your posts? What can you do to improve in the new year? (Moz has a pretty comprehensive post here on doing a full SEO audit if you feel you need that much depth, and a content audit here).
  • Have you filled out the alt-text field on all your images with keyword-rich descriptions? (remember, this is what Pinterest pulls so make it user-friendly)
  • What have you been using to track metrics/traffic? Is it working?
  • Create a Google Analytics report about what has happened on your site, and who is reading it (and on what device!) Darren has a great tutorial here on how to find the most useful stats in Google Analtyics and use that knowledge to set up your next year of blogging on the right foot.

Design

We eat with our eyes, as they say, and readers will make snap judgements about you and your blog based on how it looks when they get there. What does your design say?

  • Is it functional?
  • Is it reader-friendly?
  • Is it pleasing to the eye?
  • Does it describe you and your blog at a glance?
  • Have you stayed consistent with colours and fonts?
  • Are there any widgets that need removing?
  • How is your sidebar working? What can you shuffle around or delete entirely?
  • Are you making the most of the bottom-of-the-blog real estate?
  • Are the ads old? Can you write to the advertisers and offer them a new deal?
  • Are you making the most of your design to point to where you could make an affiliate sale?
  • Are there several points on the page where readers can follow you?
  • Is your newsletter signup box prominent? Do you have more than one?
  • Is that pop-up box worth it?
  • Are your social media icons in the right order (you might want to put your most popular sites at the front). Are they linked to the right place? Are they the right size or colour?
  • Do all the links on your homepage work?
  • What can you remove from the design to enhance the look of your blog?
  • What are you using for social sharing? Do you like it? are people using it? Can you find something that works better?
  • Personal branding: is it recognisable? Have you been using the same branding techniques on your post images?

Pages/Topics

The umbrella of what you're about. How's that workin' for ya?

  • Are the pages and topics you've sorted your content into still relevant? Have you moved onto other things? Can you merge some? Nest them?
  • Did you share content equally across all or did you find you wrote on a particular topic the most?
  • Is the navigation streamlined and user-friendly?
  • Are your pages and topics easily accessed?

How to Do an End of 2015 Blog Audit: everything to set you up for a year of successful blogging

Social Media

Our home away from home!

  • On what platform did you see the biggest growth?
  • Where was the most engagement?
  • What did you enjoy the most?
  • Have you changed profile pictures and bios lately? How current are they?
  • What brought most return for your efforts?
  • Where would you like try in the new year?
  • Is it obvious on all of these platforms what you're about? What you can offer people?
  • Do all your platforms link to your blog, and are these options obvious and easy to find?

Your promotional strategy

You can't just "build it and they will come". Because they're busy reading someone else.

  • How did you get your blog in front of new readers?
  • How successful was that?
  • What wasn't worth the time invested?
  • Where will you invest your time next year?
  • What have you got as an opt-in? Does it need upgrading?
  • How are you offering your newsletter or mailing list? Have you been consistent with it, have you been tracking open rates etc?
  • Did you guest post anywhere? Was that worth your time? Where could you try this year?
  • Did you try to get some traditional media coverage?
  • Did you try any collaborations or cross-promotions? Who could you work with in 2016?
  • Did you do any giveaways? How successful were they?

How to Do an End of 2015 Blog Audit: everything to set you up for a year of successful blogging

Monetization

  • What has been your strategy this year?
  • What monetization models were you using?
  • What has been the most lucrative?
  • What hasn't been worth your time?
  • What will you spend your resources on next year?
  • What programs, ebooks or courses need updating?
  • Can you bundle them together and do a quick lead-up to christmas sale?
  • Can you release something quick in time for christmas or new year?
  • How has your audience reacted to each monetisation strategy?
  • What model have you most enjoyed using?
  • What would you consider for the future?

Your goals

  • Did you create any? did you meet them?
  • Were you too ambitious? Or not enough?
  • What did you have in mind for next year?
  • Have you written your future goals and a plan for how to get there?
  • How could you learn from the mistakes you've made this year to help you reach your goals now?

Your feelings

  • How did you feel overall?
  • What did you excel at?
  • Where did you feel you could have done better?
  • Did you enjoy blogging?
  • Do you still enjoy it?
  • Have you thought about quitting, moving on to something else (like podcasting, for example), do you want to write a book, open an online store… did you think about expanding or moving on?
  • What would you like to do on your blog for next year?
  • What will you be leaving behind?

Ahhhh that’s better. Pens down, New Year’s celebratory drinks up! That’s you in a snapshot. May your 2017 be even more amazing.

The post Your Epic End-of-Year Blog Audit Checklist: Where You’ve Been and Where You’re Headed! appeared first on ProBlogger.

      

ProBlogger: ProBlogger Most Popular Posts on Finding Readers 2016

ProBlogger: ProBlogger Most Popular Posts on Finding Readers 2016

Link to ProBlogger

ProBlogger Most Popular Posts on Finding Readers 2016

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 05:00 AM PST

problogger-most-popular-finding-readers

Earlier posts this week include the most-read ProBlogger articles on creating content, monetization, and social media.

How to Get 10x More Traffic Without Spending a Dime on Advertising | on ProBlogger.net

How to Get 10x More Traffic Without Spending a Dime on Advertising

It’s a situation most of us find ourselves in – trying to grow our blog so we can make money, but we don’t often have wads of cash to help us do that at the start. So extra traffic for zero financial outlay? Yes please! No wonder this one was popular.

Read it here.

How I Turned One Blog Post Into a 7-Figure Business (And How You Can Capitalize on Going Viral) | on ProBlogger.net

How I Turned One Blog Post Into a 7-Figure Business (And How You Can Capitalize on Going Viral)

See that! One blog post. But it’s true, I’ve seen plenty of people go viral and then not know how to make the most of the influx of visitors. Don’t be caught out next time you get picked up on the social media wave.

Read it here.

Get Your First 1000 Readers: Here's Your Step by Step Plan | on ProBlogger.net

Get Your First 1000 Readers: Here's Your Step by Step Plan

One of our fabulous regular ProBlogger experts, Ali Luke, shares the exact plan you can follow at the very beginning of your blog to find someone other than your mum or dad to read. Also handy for getting your next thousand… and the next thousand!

Read it here.

The one reason your amazing blog post hasn't gone viral (and 8 things you can do about it) | ProBlogger.net

The One Reason Your Amazing Blog Post Hasn't Gone Viral (and 8 Things You Can Do About It)

Another of our amazing experts, Kelly Exeter, tells us the hard truth – but also makes it all better by giving us some solid instructions to ensure that we get a tsunami of traffic. Which, if you’ve read the earlier post on capitalising on going viral, you know exactly what to do with!

Read it here.

Warning: Are You Making These 8 Traffic-Killing Mistakes? Find out what they are and how to avoid them on ProBlogger.net

Warning: Are You Making These 8 Traffic-Killing Mistakes?

Ali is back with some serious talk about what bloggers are doing to make sure nobody visits their blog! Which of course, we don’t want. The more traffic the better, right? I love these kinds of posts, often I don’t know I’m making a mistake until someone tells me. I’d rather find out this way ;-)

Read it here.

What stood out to you? Was this a good year for you traffic-wise? Or was it difficult to find readers? I hope these posts helped!

The post ProBlogger Most Popular Posts on Finding Readers 2016 appeared first on ProBlogger.

      

Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Link to ShoeMoney

How to Save Money on Your Email Marketing

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 07:48 AM PST

Recently I decided to re-activate one of my email lists (that is, to start sending emails to the subscribers again). The list has around 50,000 subscribers, so I started comparing the prices of email marketing providers for a list of that size. Guess what, I wasn't too happy with what I found!

ProBlogger: ProBlogger Most Popular Posts on Social Media 2016

ProBlogger: ProBlogger Most Popular Posts on Social Media 2016

Link to ProBlogger

ProBlogger Most Popular Posts on Social Media 2016

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 05:00 AM PST

problogger-most-popular-social-media

Well it’s no secret, and probably not much of a surprise, to find that Facebook dominated the search results in social media this year on ProBlogger! The algorithm changed so much and left us all scrambling to figure out how to still reach our audience on the world’s biggest community-connecting platform.

Never fear folks, we had the best people on the job! Did you catch all of these? I remember being pretty blown away by the Facebook advertising one…

So far we’ve covered our best tips for the year on creating content, and monetization in this week’s deep-dive into our 2016 archives. Tomorrow is the last in the series – finding readers! You won’t want to miss it. Traffic makes the world go round.

Darren_Rowse_-_If_you_re_a_blogger_with_a_huge_back_catalogue_of___.png

A Quick way to Get More Facebook Likes for Your Facebook Page

Such a simple hack but one that was getting overlooked – at the expense of a new possible audience! Darren showed us the one tip that pages with a smaller readership can employ to boost their numbers.

Read it here.

benefits of facebook live video

10 Reasons Why You Should Give Facebook Live Video a Go

And Darren was back on the Facebook train with some tips he’d gathered from quite a few experiments with livestreaming on the platform. I’m willing to bet there’s even more reason to take the plunge if you haven’t already!

Read it here.

5 Facebook Advertising Features You Probably Didn't Know Existed | ProBlogger.net

5 Facebook Advertising Features You Probably Didn't Know Existed

Now here was some seriously deep digging into allll those functions in the back of Facebook Ads that you just don’t see as a newbie. Everything from free fonts to extreme targeting are laid out to give bloggers the edge.

Read it here.

Karlee's Kupcakes: the cake and Instagram queen dominating Brisbane's celebration scene.

How to Rock Instagram to Promote Your Small Business

Karlee’s Kupcakes now has 113,000+ followers on her Instagram account, compared to the 13,000 she had when she shared her tips for growth a few months ago. They clearly work! This is one you really don’t want to miss.

Read it here.

12 Bloggers to Follow on Snapchat Right Now: confused about the platform and who's doing it right so you can get some tips? I've rounded a few notable Snappers up for you on ProBlogger.net

12 Bloggers to Follow on Snapchat Right Now

Ahhh, the social platform that confused us the most this year. Why was everyone on it? How did you find anyone on it?What was the bloody point? Well, I explained all that and more when I rounded up a few folks who were doing it really right. One glance at what they are doing and it all makes sense. Get inspired to get a filter today!

Read it here.

What stood out to you this year? Did you find the posts on Facebook helpful? Did you catch the one on Twitter?

The post ProBlogger Most Popular Posts on Social Media 2016 appeared first on ProBlogger.