What Blogging Changes Do You Need to Make?

How you like me now?

I replaced my blog theme last night. After tweaking the design for a bit I went to bed at 2 AM.

I changed it at the perfect time. Everything happens at the perfect time because everything unfolds how it was meant to be.

Yet sometimes we resist blogging change. Self-sabotage follows. Success delay occurs.

I no doubt missed out on Google traffic because my old theme possessed navigation flaws. I knew it. But I resisted changing themes. Life goes that way. You know something needs to change but resist change. Change is scary. Change means learning new stuff. Change means dealing with resistance. But change is growth. Change is organic traffic. Change is blogging income. Change affixes itself to everything you ever dreamed of.

What Needs to Change on Your Blog?

Look closely at your blog flaws. Go ahead. Do it. See your blog in the light of truth.

Be gentle with yourself. Be honest with yourself. At 10 PM last night I felt an intuitive nudge to change my theme. I looked at my old theme. I loved it yet the theme served its purpose. Over. Done. Complete. I knew it was time to move on because the theme did not match my current mindset. At one time it did. For a stretch it worked exactly how I needed it to work for our collective tribe. But the time passed. I resisted changing the theme until last night. I knew it was time to change.

How about your blog? What needs tweaking? Do you need to make a complete overhaul? Do you need a new theme? Do you need to whittle down to one blog topic? What about your readers? What feedback do readers offer you? Do you listen? Not every piece of advice works for your tribe, but some does.

Look closely at your strategy. What needs to change? Do you need to publish long form blog posts? Do you need to trim the blogging fat by deleting a few hundred words on bloated blog posts? I did. I instantly felt better.

What about your mental blogging game? Do you need to stop criticizing bloggers in your niche? Do you need to cease victimizing your blog to Google? Who do you need to release? Spammers? Scammers? Where your attention and energy goes, grows. Give it to spammers and scammers. Spammers and scammers grow in your experience. How does this help your loyal readers?

I cringe the moment I think about the old blogging me. I had a hit list of bloggers I wanted to stick it to. No joke. Sometimes I made it public but usually the grievances remained private. Do you know the havoc this causes in your mind? Being angry at other bloggers fixes anger in your mind as you write content, network and monetize your blog. Do you blog most effectively thinking clearly or being angry? Do you think clearly with peace or anger in your mind?

Successful bloggers blog with a clear head.

What Needs to Stay or Go?

Do you need to keep old content but update links?

Do you need to keep your theme but tweak design elements to create a seamless user experience?

Set aside one hour today. Look closely at your blog. Think about what needs to change. Create a list.

Delete non-essentials from the list.

Work from what needs to change now.

Change

OK; here is the difficult but doable part.

Change.

Make the changes.

Activate the new theme. Make necessary changes based on activating the new theme.

This is the uncomfortable part.

The moment after I activated my new theme I spent the next few hours doing these things:

I made my blog the home page (I dug for a bit to figure out how to do that)
I began the process of removing my single header image from posts (the featured image does the trick with my new theme)
I resized and added the Blogging From Paradise banner (at the top of my blog)
I edited my header menu
I edited my sidebar widgets
I embedded an author bio box pointing to my online course and eBooks (clicking on my name from said box no longer leads to a white page but all posts that I published on Blogging From Paradise Dot Com)

Making these preliminary edits required a roughly four hour work investment.

This is why bloggers run away from change. Changing means doing ample work. When you change one big thing you often need to change many little things to run a smooth blogging ship.

Do you want organic blog traffic? Do you want loyal readers? How about blogging income?

In most cases, changing things is required to facilitate growth.

I’m not sure if the change will be big or little for you. But I am sure that change is required in a world of change.

Usually it is a little tweaking here and testing there. Sometimes massive change needs to happen to reach the next stage of blogging growth.

What Is the Biggest Upside of Change?

Relief.

You knew that you had to do it to grow. Doing it feels relieving.

Of course you have plenty of work to do because change requires…..well….changing many little things to make your blog functional. But the little things feel like small potatoes to a relieved, peaceful mind.

Amplifying your success ain’t a half bad benefit, too. Changing things for your tribe increases organic traffic. It is a user experience thing. Make it easy for readers to get what they want and they show up consistently.

My bounce rate will instantly improve because my navigation instantly improved the moment I activated my new theme. Look up. Look down. Scroll through all of my blog posts; no dead links anymore. Click through recent posts via my sidebar.