There are a lot of little “Maintenance” tasks that need to happen to make sure our blog stays healthy. And yes, I could do them all myself – because most of them are quick. But the fact of the matter is, every additional thing on my “list” takes energy and adds both the time to do the task and the “transition” time before and after. I’ve found delegating a task that only takes 5 minutes is still a big win.

On that note, today I’d like to show you a tiny monthly workflow I’ve delegated to my VA to monitor for broken links on our website.

Monthly Broken Link Check

Assigned to: Yourself or your VA

Due: On the xth day of the month, Recurs Monthly (Choose your own date, it doesn’t matter.)

First, go to a “broken link checker” website. (Here’s the one I use.)
Enter your URL and security code into the gray box. Make sure “Report all occurrences of dead link” is selected
Click “Find broken links now”
The next step will take 5-10 minutes. Keep this window open and work on something else for a little while (Or go get a glass of water or coffee or something 🙂
There are a couple of ways you could have your VA move forward. I have included three options below.

[su_note note_color=”#ffffff” text_color=”#3d3d3d”]Option 1: Go ahead and fix the links yourself

When the results are shown, review each broken link. On the “Page where found”, either update the offending URL or remove the hyperlink entirely.

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[su_note note_color=”#ffffff” text_color=”#3d3d3d”]Option 2: Have your VA email you or assign you an Asana task to review the results.

Either:

When the results are shown, send me an email. Include the URL for the “Page Where Found” and the URL of the broken link for every result shown.

When the results are shown, create a new Asana task and assign it to me. Call it “Fix Broken Links” and in the description, include the URL for the “Page Where Found” and the URL of the broken link for every result shown. Assign a due date two days from now and add the task to the “Tech” Project.

Update the project and due date according to your Asana setup and preferences.

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[su_note note_color=”#ffffff” text_color=”#3d3d3d”]Option 3: Have your VA attempt to fix the broken links.

When the results are shown, do the following for each row:

Click “URL” under “Page where found” to see the page where the broken link exists.
In the top of your browser click “Edit post” in the black bar. (If there is no black bar, open another tab and login to WordPress, then refresh the page)
In the “Edit post” page, click on the “text” tab and search for the URL listed as the “Broken link” on the broken link checker. Once found, read through the surrounding text to try to understand what URL should be there. Search our site and Google to find the correct url or a valid substitute.
If you were able to find the correct URL, replace the bad URL with the correct one and save / update the post. If you were not able to find the correct URL or if you are uncertain, send me an email. Include the URL for the “Page Where Found” and the URL of the broken link.

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That’s Ridiculous!

… I hear you say. Is this a task I could easily do myself? Yep.

Is it something I never ever did before I had a VA because it’s kind of annoying and not THAT big of a priority? Totally.

Is it something that I can delegate easily? Yes.

Now that I have help, this actually gets done. Worth it? Absolutely.