The Essential Blog Maintenance Checklist: Tasks You Should Be Doing Regularly
When we think about running a blog, our minds usually go straight to the creative side: brainstorming fresh content, writing engaging articles, or creating eye-catching graphics. However, behind every successful, smooth-running site is a solid foundation of regular maintenance.
Ignoring routine housekeeping can quickly lead to slow loading speeds, broken links, lost traffic, and unexpected technical glitches. To keep your website running efficiently and looking its absolute best for readers and search engines alike, here is a breakdown of the essential blog maintenance tasks you should be carrying out.
Disclosure: The FTC Disclosure Provision is a law that requires influencers to disclose when they are being paid to promote a product or service. So please know that if I'm not making money through affiliate links/sponsored content on the post you're currently reading, it's an oversight on my part and will be corrected soon. Read the full
disclosure about all the legal stuff here.
Weekly Maintenance Tasks
These quick weekly check-ins take very little time but prevent small issues from spiralling into bigger problems.
Run Full Site Backups: Always keep fresh backups of your content, themes, and settings stored securely off-site (such as on cloud storage or a secondary drive) so you can restore everything instantly if anything ever goes wrong.
Scan for Broken Links: Dead links ruin the reader experience and harm your search performance. Use a link checker tool to quickly flag and fix broken internal links or outdated external source URLs.
Check Site Speed and Loading Times: Run your homepage and a couple of recent posts through Google PageSpeed Insights to make sure page load times remain snappy across both mobile and desktop.
Review Recent Comments and Spam Filters: Moderating comments regularly keeps your community engaging and prevents unwanted spam links from accumulating in your moderation queue.
Monthly Maintenance Tasks
Taking an hour or two every month to dive a little deeper ensures your content strategy and technical setup stay aligned.
Audit and Optimise Top-Performing Posts: Check your site analytics to see which posts bring in the most traffic. Update old statistics, tweak formatting for better readability, and refresh internal links pointing to newer content.
Test Forms and Navigation: Walk through your site as if you were a first-time visitor. Test your contact forms, subscription sign-ups, and main navigation menus to confirm everything functions seamlessly.
Review Broken Redirects and 404 Errors: Use Google Search Console to inspect crawl errors and ensure any deleted or renamed pages properly redirect to active posts.
Clean Up the Media Library: Unused image drafts, duplicate media files, and uncompressed images bloat your storage space. Delete unneeded media and ensure all image file sizes are compressed for quick loading.
Quarterly & Annual Maintenance Tasks
Setting aside dedicated time every few months helps safeguard your site’s long-term health and privacy compliance.
Perform an In-Depth SEO Audit: Review your target keywords, meta descriptions, image alt tags, and site architecture to ensure search engines continue indexing your pages properly.
Audit Plugins, Themes, and Scripts: Remove unused widgets, third-party scripts, or inactive site plugins. Keeping your setup lightweight improves speed and minimises technical conflicts.
Update Legal and Policy Pages: Double-check your Privacy Policy, Terms of Conditions, Affiliate Disclosures, and Cookie Banners to verify that all details are accurate and up to date.
Review Monetisation and Affiliate Links: Test affiliate banners, sponsored content disclosures, and ad placements to make sure links track properly and ad layouts remain user-friendly.
Over to You!
How often do you dedicate time to site maintenance, or do you tend to wait until something breaks before fixing it? Let me know your top blog maintenance tips in the comments below!
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Books: First Lines Fridays 23rd October 2026
Ready for another First Lines Friday? It's that time of the week when we judge a book not by it's cover or even by its blurb. Instead we will be judging it's ability to hook us from the opening lines. Let's see if this week's pick will have you adding it to your TBR list or not.
Disclosure: The FTC Disclosure Provision is a law that requires influencers to disclose when they are being paid to promote a product or service. So please know that if I'm not making money through affiliate links/sponsored content on the post you're currently reading, it's an oversight on my part and will be corrected soon. Read the full
disclosure about all the legal stuff here.
I'm participating in First Lines Fridays as I think it's a great way to highlight more of the books that are on my bookshelves.
What is First Lines Fridays?
First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
- Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
- Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
- Finally… reveal the book!
My Pick For This Week
The first lines of the book:
Therapy was supposed to help Elena Drake trust her mind. Instead, someone is teaching her to doubt it. When Elena comes home to find her deadbolt unlocked, her lamp on, and her appointment book moved, she knows someone has been inside her apartment. Then Elena finds the Polaroid on her pillow—a photo of herself asleep in her own bed. Everyone tells her there must be another explanation.
Do you know which book this is from? Scroll down to find out!
And the book is...
Book synopsis The Perfect Patient by Paige Monroe
Therapy was supposed to save her mind.
But it might be an experiment meant to destroy it.
Elena Drake returns home to find things slightly out of place.
Her worst fear resurfaces - someone has been inside her apartment.
And that’s only the beginning.
No one believes her - not her boyfriend, her best friend, or the police.
At first, only her therapist, Dr. Roth, seems to understand. Kind. Calm. Always in control.
As Elena digs deeper, the line between memory and manipulation blurs.
Friends pull away. Doubt creeps in.
Is the real danger outside her walls—or inside her mind?
But the more she confides in Dr. Roth, the more her world tilts out of control.
Is the person she thought she could trust, the man meant to help her, the one pulling the strings?
Every discovery shatters what she thought she knew about her past, her sanity, and herself.
In a world built on deception, can Elena uncover the truth before she unravels completely?
Where to find The Perfect Patient by Paige Monroe online:
Have you read this book? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do these opening lines make you want to read the book?
What would you like to explore next?
Are you looking for your next favourite read, blogging tips, or a new challenge? Click a button below to dive in!
If you'd like to support me, donating goes a long way to helping with the running of this blog. Thanks for your support 💗
Donate now
Books: First Lines Fridays 16th October 2026
Ready for another First Lines Friday? It's that time of the week when we judge a book not by it's cover or even by its blurb. Instead we will be judging it's ability to hook us from the opening lines. Let's see if this week's pick will have you adding it to your TBR list or not.
Disclosure: The FTC Disclosure Provision is a law that requires influencers to disclose when they are being paid to promote a product or service. So please know that if I'm not making money through affiliate links/sponsored content on the post you're currently reading, it's an oversight on my part and will be corrected soon. Read the full
disclosure about all the legal stuff here.
I'm participating in First Lines Fridays as I think it's a great way to highlight more of the books that are on my bookshelves.
What is First Lines Fridays?
First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
- Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
- Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
- Finally… reveal the book!
My Pick For This Week
The first lines of the book:
From: lisamreynard@reynardaccounting.com To: lisamreynard@reynardaccounting.com BCC: joseph.briggs@briggsfinancial.com, brit.jones@brighthorizons.com, brenda.peterson@brighthorizons.com, darrenljost@hotmail.com Subject: Brit & Joe’s White Lie Party Save the date! You are cordially invited to a White Lie Party celebrating Joe Briggs and Brit Jones’s upcoming nuptials. White attire is requested. Details to follow. xx Lisa (Maid of Honor)
There are three of us lined up in a row. Two of us will stay. One of us will go.
Do you know which book this is from? Scroll down to find out!
And the book is...
Book synopsis Five Liars by D.L. Fisher
The fraud.
The imposter.
The cheater.
The fake.
The murderer.
Which one am I?
The guest list for Brit and Joe’s joint bachelor-bachelorette weekend is small and exclusive: the bride, the groom, the best man, a work friend . . . and me, the maid of honor. I’ve planned every detail to make this a celebration none of us will ever forget.
Expect daytime drinking, poolside lounging — and a White Lie Party designed to help us share all our little secrets.
After all, confession is good for the soul . . . and one of us is hiding something truly killer.
Don’t forget to save the date!
Love,
The Maid of Honor x
Where to find Five Liars by D.L. Fisher online:
Have you read this book? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do these opening lines make you want to read the book?
What would you like to explore next?
Are you looking for your next favourite read, blogging tips, or a new challenge? Click a button below to dive in!
If you'd like to support me, donating goes a long way to helping with the running of this blog. Thanks for your support 💗
Donate now
Book Spotlight: The Connection in Everything by Rich Marcello
Today I'm part of a virtual book tour organised by The Write Reads for The Connection in Everything by Rich Marcello. The tour for ‘The Connection in Everything' will run from 12th - 17th October 2026.
Disclosure: The FTC Disclosure Provision is a law that requires influencers to disclose when they are being paid to promote a product or service. So please know that if I'm not making money through affiliate links/sponsored content on the post you're currently reading, it's an oversight on my part and will be corrected soon. Read the full
disclosure about all the legal stuff here.
Genre: Coming of Age
Age Category: Young Adult
Number of Pages: 302 Pages
Publication Date: September 1, 2026
Book synopsis for The Connection in Everything by Rich Marcello
A lonely teenage genius who believes there’s a connection in everything finds his theory put to the test when a mysterious mentor and an enchanting artist enter his life, launching a summer-long search for the true meaning of connection.Sixteen-year-old Amaro Marzano sees connections everywhere—in the quantum world, in the patterns of nature, in the verses of Rumi. Yet, in his own life in working-class Worcester, Massachusetts, he feels profoundly disconnected. Trapped by the volatility of his strict father and the weight of family expectations, Am finds solace in the quiet orbit of school, the library, and his two best friends.
But his world fractures and reforms when two new connections emerge: David Butler, a recluse with a library holding ten thousand books, who becomes an unlikely mentor; and Ginnevra Poppoli, a captivating mime artist who offers the breathtaking possibility of first love.
As Am navigates escalating family crises, intellectual awakenings, and the bittersweet intensity of young love, he must rely on his “found family” and his own novel ideas to forge and maintain relationships in a world where true connection has become a radical act.
The Connection in Everything is a luminous, heartbreaking, and intellectually dazzling coming-of-age story about finding your place in a universe that is both terrifyingly chaotic and astonishingly interconnected.
Where to find The Connection in Everything by Rich Marcello online:
About the author
Rich is the author of seven acclaimed novels—including Cenotaphs, The Latecomers, The Means of Keeping, and his most recent work, The Connection in Everything—as well as the poetry collection The Long Body That Connects Us All.
Rich’s creative voice is uniquely shaped by a dual history of high-stakes leadership and artistic immersion. Before dedicating himself to fiction, he enjoyed a distinguished career as a technology executive, managing multibillion-dollar businesses for Fortune 500 companies. This background provides his storytelling with a unique intellectual rigor and a keen understanding of the systems, both corporate and social, that shape modern life. Yet, it is his “eye and ear of a poet” and his experience as a songwriter that infuse his prose with its characteristic lyrical beauty and emotional intimacy.
Beyond the page, Rich is an advocate for the literary arts and his local community. He served as the president of the Seven Bridges Writers’ Collaborative for four years, mentoring emerging voices and teaching fiction. Today, he remains a voice in Harvard, Massachusetts, where he serves on the Harvard Climate Initiative Committee and writes a regular column for The Harvard Press on the climate crisis.
For Rich, art is ultimately an act of service. Whether through a song, a poem, or a 400-page novel, his goal is to make a meaningful difference to at least one other person in the world, a goal he’s achieved many times over. Rich lives in Harvard with his wife, Maribeth, and their Newfoundland, Iaia. He is currently at work on his eighth novel, Threshold, continuing his journey toward creating a ten-book cycle of interconnected human stories.
For more inspiration, take a look at 101 Blog Post Ideas For Book Bloggers to keep your content fresh and engaging.
What would you like to explore next?
Are you looking for your next favourite read, blogging tips, or a new challenge? Click a button below to dive in!
If you'd like to support me, donating goes a long way to helping with the running of this blog. Thanks for your support 💗
Donate now
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