What should you do with your blog when you go on Vacation?
Many bloggers worry about going away and leaving their blog or websites behind.
Should they just leave their sites alone, or are there things that could be done to keep things going?
Having just had a break away myself and been navigating the six week school break, I know how hard it can be to get back into the swing of things, (related post: how to blog after a break).
So, here are 5 things to do with your blog while on vacation, (or “holiday,” if you’re a Brit like myself!).
1. Take An Actual Break – Switch Off!
I think this is probably what most bloggers tend to do, even if they set out with the best intentions to still continue blogging while away.
This is what I tend to do also. I half consider trying to get something done, but very quickly it becomes apparent that nothing is going to get done!
It just feels wrong to still be “working,” when you’re meant to be spending time with your family? That’s how I feel anyway.
As someone who spends a lot of time glued to their laptop normally, I think having a vacation or holiday, is a good time to let your family see you without your usual technological attachments!
The main problem with this method is that I find it can be difficult to get back on track, particularly if you take several weeks off!
So, perhaps it’s not the best method and personally, I think some of the other suggestions below could be a useful compromise.
2. Guest Post Opportunities?
Perhaps if you’ve been blogging for a while, you could get emails from people wanting to guest post on your blog, generally in exchange for a link back to their own blog.
This can be a great way to build up some additional content that you can set up to be published during your break away.
If you’re organised about it, you could set up a few guest posts in the weeks prior to going away.
Spend some time getting content ready to publish and you can schedule them to be published whenever you like and you won’t have to actually do anything while you’re away.
3. Outsource Some Content!
If you’re not keen on guest posting, or don’t have many offers yet in that department, you could also consider outsourcing some content.
I’ve had some really positive experiences outsourcing content. You can find great writers in any niche and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune.
Personally, I prefer Upwork right now to find writers and artists.
I will normally have at least 10 people respond quickly to any job ad I post, so there is then plenty of choice and you can spend some time finding the write person.
Over time, you can build up a list of people that you’ve had a positive experience with and send jobs directly to them.
I wrote another article here, about how to find writers on a budget.
4. Update Republish OLD Posts!
Recently, I heard about this on an episode of the side-hustle show.
It was an episode about SEO for bloggers, with Joseph Hogue and he mentioned he could get 3 x the traffic, but republishing old posts.
Now, this won’t be a good idea if your URLs are date specific, but if they aren’t, you can manually change the blog date in your post in wordpress, (for a couple of minutes in the future, for example).
This can give new life to your post in the eyes of Google and also, it gives you a good opportunity to update your posts and improve them.
For example, you could add more in depth information, a video, or an infographic.
This of course would take some planning. But you could update your posts and set the date for publishing for some time in the future, while you’re on vacation.
It would still take considerably less time than creating a bunch of new content.
One negative aspect would be, it could irritate your long term readers that are looking for new material.
That being said, if you add some valuable updates, then most readers are going to be interested in seeing a much improved post that could be beneficial to them.
Go and have a look in Google Analytics and see which posts are lacking in the traffic department…. what can you do to improve them?
5. Write Posts In Advance!
This suggestion will obviously take the most amount of time, but is certainly worth the effort.
Plan in advance how many articles you may need to cover the time you’re on vacation… maybe you just want three articles a week and you’ll be away for two weeks.
Useful Post – How To Batch Blog Like A Pro!
So, you could plan to write a couple of extra articles a week in the three weeks, prior to taking your trip.
You can have your posts edited and ready to go, with the date and time all set in WordPress to post whenever you choose.
One issue with this is, whatever you’re writing about could be out of date by the time you publish…
The most obvious solution, would be to ensure you write about evergreen topics, or at least posts that you’re confident will not be outdated in the next few weeks.
Ultimately, bloggers panic too much about having a little break from their blog.
One of the biggest concerns tends to be that their traffic will drop.
Personally, I haven’t experienced this at all.
Actually, I had one of my highest traffic days ever, while I was away and my traffic grew in general too.
So, while you don’t want to take months and months off – a couple of weeks is not going to do your blog any harm at all.
Us bloggers really need a break away sometimes!
Just a little time away can be all you need to generate fresh ideas, motivation and enthusiasm.
What do you do with your blog when you’re on vacation?
Leave me a comment below!
If you were wondering where I had got to…. I’m back and raring to go, plenty of new content coming up in the coming weeks.
All the best,
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