How Do Bloggers Get To Take A Holiday?
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All bloggers need a holiday sometime, like me! A break and a rest and then I can come back refreshed. But how do I do it? I need to think about content production which happens on a nearly daily basis, and will it affect my rankings and readership and all the hard work I have been putting into it, I don’t want to see it wasted.
Well as usually happens with me I learn the hard way, by my mistakes (not intentionally may I add). I have recently been on a well needed holiday, and it didn’t work quite like I intended as you may have guessed by the lack of recent posts.
Just as a little aside, I went camping in France with my husband and 2 children and had a great time, the people were lovely, food was fantastic and France is beautiful (picture is the view from the back of our tent). I need another holiday though because we drove all the way and got the ferry, an interesting experience with 2 small children!
Anyway getting back to it, with hindsight (a wonderful thing) there are 2 ways I feel I could have used to keep my blog going while I was away:
- Write enough content to cover the holiday before leaving, and use the time stamp feature of Wordpress to publish it.
- Invite Guest Bloggers to write for me while I am away.
There are obviously lots of solutions to this problem, but these are the two I feel fit me and my style as a blogger the best.
Option 1.
Written down they look simple enough but as I found the reality is very different. Both options involve a lot of work and setting up, and this is what I totally underestimated and I basically ran out of time (there’s nothing like honesty). I chose option 1, I had never used the time stamp tool and I wanted to give it a go. So obviously I had to plan my posts a fair way ahead and double up on my writing coming up to going away. The planning part was fine but I started around 10 days before and this just wasn’t enough time. Next time I would start a month before and also write posts for a few days after I come back. My main problem was I underestimated the time it would take me to prepare for the holiday with packing etc, and the children being off for the summer holidays stopped me doing even that. My only defence is it was their first holiday abroad - next time I will be prepared! So to sum up option 1 does work well, the posts were published automatically when I had asked. The only tip I will add is if you use this option, then start it a month before you go away and overlap it for when you come home, to give yourself chance to recover from the holiday itself before you have to start posting again.
Option 2.
I have not tried so far but would love to, because I think it would add fresh new content and a different point of view to my blog, and would be a nice change of pace. As well as hopefully giving me the chance to build relationships with other like minded bloggers with similar blogs. The hard part to this option would be finding bloggers like that , that are willing to do the guest posts, and then working out the arrangements. It would be more exposure for them and I could also offer to do the same in return for them if they liked my writing style, helping the both of us out . This option is something I will definitely be doing in the future and I won’t wait for holidays to try it. I am going to start building those relationships (and friendships) now.
Another blogging lesson learned and hurdle overcome, it’s all hard work now to make up for my absence and to recover my rankings. Here’s to the next holiday being smoother.
Mandy
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7 Responses to “How Do Bloggers Get To Take A Holiday?”
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I never have enough time to post to my blogs daily, but I work outside my home as well as on the computer in my spare time. If I’m on a roll and can post ahead of time, it makes the week easier. I haven’t tried guest blogging yet.
[…] How Do Bloggers Get To Take A Holiday? posted at builda-blog.com. This is something I wonder about myself. Lucky for me, debt does not give many holidays (although we have a trip in October planned…. must start thinking about that!) […]
It’s all a learning experience isn’t it? I recently ran a competition and learnt a lot from that and would totally do it different if there’s a next time.
I know I am having problems posting regularly at the moment, but that’s because of the demands of my 2 kids.
It’s getting the right balance with juggling everything - getting there slowly.
Thanks to ‘I’ve paid for this twice already…’ for the link!
[…] How Do Bloggers Get To Take A Holiday? posted by Mandy. […]
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