How to take a blog vacation
Related entries in Professional BloggingIf you follow my other blogs, you know I’m actually on vacation right now. And preparing for it, blog wise, was a big deal. Sure, not every blog was worrying me. I knew some could go a week without content and be ok. But others I have obligations to: some are just starting, some are b5 blogs, some are paid, and some of my own are the key revenue earners. So, preparing to go on a blog vacation was a big deal.
How do you prepare your blogs for an extended absence? Well, there are several ways.
1. Guest bloggers - if you have a fairly well-read blog that thrives on new content, you would be best to invite bloggers to temp at your site. You can get one or a whole bunch. Darren Rowse did this when he went away for a few weeks.
2. Advance post - if your blog platform supports advanced posting (setting the publish date for one in the future) then you can write your daily quota of content beforehand. This works well with WordPress sites.
3. Write from the road - if you aren’t worried about a decrease in post volume, and you expect to have internet access while away, blog from the road.
4. Announce you are going away - if your absence is going to be noticeable, let people know you’re away. This is particularly important if you have a high volume of comments and won’t be able to moderate or respond in a timely manner.
I’m doing a little of the last 3 options. I wrote about 7 days’ worth of posts for my b5 blogs and a few in my own network (boy was that a lot of work), and I’ve written more timely posts whenever I’ve had access. Some blogs have not been getting content at all, and that’s just a fact I’ve had to deal with. Other blog platforms do not support advanced posting, which has turned out to be kind of sucky since many of the hotels we’ve stayed in have not had internet access.
Overall, however, it’s worked out well. Our income level has not changed noticeably, and the traffic levels are staying up in most cases. So, when you go on vacation, take care of your blog. It might be some extra work, but it’s peace of mind.
November 9th, 2005 at 3:38 am
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November 9th, 2005 at 6:44 am
Timely topic for me. I’m planning to go to Russia in a few days, so I’ve written two weeks of posts (roughly 5-6 per DAY) to come up during that time. I’m not sure how it will work given TYpepad’s recent problems with future posting, but I guess I’m about to find out. ;-)
November 9th, 2005 at 8:46 am
[…] Ianiv and Arieanna are having a holiday down at Disneyworld. The photos they have on Flickr are cute, but what really got me excited was the fact that they were both wearing their CafeGeek t-shirts. […]
November 9th, 2005 at 10:43 pm
Good luck! Luckily, all mine posted ok (phew!)
November 12th, 2005 at 2:00 pm
hey Arienna,
I never realized about the Advance posting in Wordpress until reading this post by you - and now I can vaguely remember seeing such a thing!
I was away for a few days and had written and saved the posts as drafts. I had to publish them each day by logging in. Thanks for telling us that Advance Posting in Wordpress works well.
November 14th, 2005 at 10:22 am
[…] I’ve read about a number of available options to be done for taking a blog vacation. Arienna has a very good post on how to handle it. Which is more appropriate for me? […]