Happy new year! It’s the 3rd of January, so: how many of you out there still haven’t broken your new year’s resolutions yet?

With the new beginnings and fresh starts that a new year brings, consider making some resolutions for your Web site. Things like making your site lose weight, eat better, work out every day…

No, sorry, wrong kind of resolutions. Here are some simple steps you can take, though, to improve your site’s performance for you, both in 2014 and beyond.

1. Set up a blog

If you haven’t yet migrated your site over to a platform that allows you to blog, now is a great time to do that. You’ll want to choose a platform that’s easy to use, good at handling various kinds of content, and has a great blog baked in as well. (*cough* WordPress *cough*)

2. Blog regularly

Once you’ve got a blog platform in place, the next step is to use it! Pick a reasonable schedule that you can maintain for the long haul, and stick to that schedule. You might choose to blog once a week, or on every Monday and Wednesday, or every single day. Whatever the schedule, be diligent about posting. It can take a few months to start seeing results from your blogging efforts, but in the long run it will pay off as search engines pick you up and you gain traffic.

3. Stay on top of updates

WordPress, like any other program, is software. It can be vulnerable to malicious attacks, viruses, and the like, so you want to stay on top of your updates. Many times when a new version of WordPress comes out (or a new version of a theme or a plugin), it’s because they’ve patched a hole in security. Keeping up to date on all your software will protect your site and make for a happier 2014 for you.

4. Make backups

Just in case anything should ever happen to your site, you want to have a good backup you can fall back on. Trust us, it’s much easier than rebuilding your site from scratch! BackWPUp and BackupBuddy are two good plugins for this purpose.

5. Allow your design to evolve, gradually

There’s no need for a radical re-design, unless your site was built 10 years ago and hasn’t been touched since. But it’s a good idea to make gradual changes to your site’s design. Iterate and improve – think evolution, not revolution.

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Pick one or all of these for your site, and have a great 2014!

Photo Credit: williamcho via Compfight cc