Summer has finally hit the shores of the Netherlands and elsewhere too I dare say. Like I announced earlier I’ve changed my posting routine to once a week at least for now.

Great summer image by Christine Majul. Click to view on Flickr.

To make sure I don’t end up neglecting my blog over the summer, I’ve thought of a couple of easy tasks that’ll make any blog better than it already is. Are you ready?

‘Summer up’ your old blog posts

Check for old posts that you wrote in a hurry. Think of topics that might have turned into a great post but didn’t quite make it because you were tired or stressed out. Open the curtains and let the sun shine into those old winterdepressed writings. See if which of your old ideas, posts and drafts alike, deserve some high summer TLC from you and start editing, rewriting, and (re-)publishing.

If you post one new blog post once a week, update another post every week or so.

Replace sub-par images with quality images

This is definitely an issue for some of my posts and I think it is the nicest way to update old posts. There must’ve been times when you just didn’t have time or energy to look for the best possible images. Change images you added which you don’t like anymore – images that don’t fit in with the rest of your blog. I can’t think of a nicer way to improve your blog than looking for really cool pictures that’ll make your (old) posts look 10 times better. Look for great images to grace your future posts while you’re at it.

This also means tagging the new images. Focusing on just the images on your blog for a change means you can ‘SEO’ your images as much as you like by adding keywords from your text to the alternative text box (Alt tag stuff), description, and title. This is what turns an image into visual content, apart from its contribution to your written content.

Check your stats for blogging inspiration

What topics and posts have been really popular? Do your popular posts stand out in particular ways, like quality of images, truly inspired writing, or seasonal flavor?

Have people found you through search – if so, what were they looking for?

Blog improvement tasks in summer

The important thing is to remember it’s summer. Don’t beat yourself up if you find you could have done a better job for some posts. Summer is a great time for good intentions. Start by taking a relaxed view of your blog posts – then take them out for a brisk run in the summer breeze.