Having a blog is like having a pet when it comes to taking some time for off. If you want to go on a vacation and has declared it a “blog-free†vacation you should make sure that the blog still gets tended. After all if you have a baby you won’t just leave it alone at home for days on end. If going out for the afternoon or maybe overnight leaving food and water might be enough but longer than that and you’ll need to make arrangements such as getting a pet sitter, asking your friends for a favor or bringing your pet to an animal shelter. The same is true for your blog.
First of all if you are going on a long vacation DO NOT announce to your readers that you will be going and leaving your blog empty for a while. This is important because you don’t want to encourage your readers to stop visiting your blog, which is what they’ll do when they find out there won’t be any updates for some time. Your readers might get used to not looking you up and we know how momentum works – don’t let it work against you! So instead of making an announcement here are a couple of things you can do:
Post-date your posts – Write in advance and stagger the posting of pre-written posts. However, if the nature of your blog is more of news updates this won’t work.
Get a guest blogger(s) – If you’ll be having guest bloggers it’s OK to announce your vacation since your blog will still be updated. A good idea would be to get regular readers to pitch in by serving as guest blogger(s). This way, not only will your blog be updated but you’ll be assured of interest and participation from loyal readers.
Originally posted on September 25, 2009 @ 6:25 am
