As you may have noticed Real Blogging Tips has been a little quiet as of late. Tennius’s awesome Guest Post “4 Different Ways To Destroy Your Blog” was the last thing here and sadly I have not managed to follow the tips he laid out! No doubt I have lost some readers….
I have been on a Vacation, back in the UK, visiting friends and family before I move to Cairo in August. Sadly my plan to keep the blog going whilst travelling around has been much harder than I anticipated.
Basically I now have a good plan in my head of how to approach keeping the blog alive next time I go away and am likely to have limited internet access. My Mum often used to say to me “Do as I Say, Not as I do”. As I messed up on the blog planning front but am about to give you advice…. I guess I am kind of using that phrase here too 
.
First off, I think a blog only needs around two high quality posts a week. Anymore and your readers may get behind on the reading. Be honest, how many of you read every post from blogs that post daily?
So if you are going away for 3 weeks you need to pre-schedule 6 posts and you can go away safe in the knowledge that your blog will keep working whilst you lounge around on the beach.
If you take the time to mail your list or privately mail some blogging friends then you can easily make half of those posts guest posts, reducing your need to come up with quality content all in one go.
Next up…. I think it would be a great idea to add a little foot note to each of your holiday posts letting readers know you are away and that you will be answering all comments on your return. If you put it in italics and bold then hopefully even skim readers will pick up on it. Something like this may work:
I will be on vacation visiting my friends and family until around August 10th and will be answering all comments on my return. If I get a chance before, I will pop online and answer them sooner. Thanks a million,
Forest.
When You return it will be a 5 minute job to go through the posts and remove the foot note.
Another important thing is to make sure that you contact your advertisers and make sure they are aware that you will be away so that you can set up any due renewals or anything whilst you are away…. Obviously it’s also a good idea to set up an auto response on your blogging email too.
It’s as simple as that. I don’t think you have to do much more but if you think I have missed anything I would love to hear your thoughts.
Also just before I head off and just incase you don’t know…. Here is how you schedule a post in Wordpress.
- Log into Wordpress.
- Click on Posts > Add Post.
- Write your post as normal.
- On the top right in the Publish box click Edit, next to Publish immediately. This will let you set a date and time for the post
- Hit the Schedule button.
Take care,
Forest.
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At first I thought You went on a vacation to some hot and sunny country close to the equator
And then You say that You went to England 
Well, home is home, but the English weather is just not fitting the whole idea of vacation for me 
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It’s been a long vacation… Started in Vermont, USA… I am in England right now.
Considering I am moving to Egypt I don’t have to worry about getting any sun whilst on vacation
Thanks for coming by as always.
Yes guest posts are a great way to fill in content while you are away. Taking advantage of Wordpress’s post schedule is another great tip. Too many people just leave their blog inactive while they are away.
I have been leaving mine too inactive. I should have planned better!!!
one of my blogs was not update for two months but still earns me a decent $600-$700 a month. A part of the earnings comes from Adsense
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Wow that is an awesome return from one blog. Some blogs need to keep posting otherwise you lose the community. I have many blogs that operate like static sites so they don’t need updating, like yours.
This blog however does not make any money and requires that I keep posting on a regular basis.
Hart to blog keep working specially when we are on vacation, 2 quality post in a week enough to bind readers on blog. as you planning you idea supeb of scheduling pre post in advance for posting, we can collect some guest post or can create some advance post which helps to our blog be active for reader and for blogger as well and as you said you can give answer after back to the vacation….. go enjoy ….
Exactly… I am nearing the end of my vacation now but will try and keep the two posts a week until I am back on a regular basis.
I am glad my readers are still here.
Nice to hear from you Forest. I hope you’re enjoying your vacation!
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Thanks Michelle, hope you are well too?
When I go to Florida for a month in June, I will not have a computer with me to blog. Luckily, I have a partner on my blog, but I wouldn’t leave them the burden of writing 30 day straight. I probably would write 10-15 articles and either timestamp them, or just have my partner publish them. It will be hard to do because that is a lot of writing, but it is something that just HAS to be done.
Good plan… Just start early and things should be fine. You could also reduce your posting frequency. 30 posts in a month on one blog is a lot!
Our Blog must working when we on vacation..
Hey…. How do you keep your blog working?
Great post. This is a nice method that allows you too keep the blog running. I have heard of a plugin that WILL NOT display the dates of posts for first time visitors, this way a fresh reader isnt discouraged by a post that is older.
Do you know anything about this Forest?
Hey John,
Thanks for coming by…. That’s a pretty good idea that I had never considered before. I found a plug in with that capability here: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/date-exclusion-wordpress-plugin/
This post is really great showing the great teechnique about keeping the blog working while relaxing. I think i have to try for this when i will go for vacation.
Fantastic, thanks for swinging by again.
Nice Forest. I’m checking out that plug in right now. Thanks for finding it for us!
Hey John, did the plugin work for you?
Hey Forest, the plugin is cool, but it seams to only allow you to turn the date stamp off after a certain amount of time, right when the post is published, or a few other options. I wasnt able to find the setting for new visitors. Have you checked it out?
Hey John,
I recently tried this one: http://bluecowhosting.com/blog/wordpress-plugins/date-exclusion-seo-plugin/ not sure if it’s the same as the link I gave you. Sadly it only has the option to turn off the date after posting or a few days after like the one I gave you before.
I’m a little late commenting here (and reading) but I think that is a great idea. Sometimes when I have scheduled posts I wonder if it looks funny to my readers that I don’t answer their comments but have time to write another post – when in reality, I set it up all before-hand. But it is definitely better to have some posts occurring while you are away, than none.I like your footnote idea very much
Thanks Anna,
You can add the footnote to the theme file easy enough so it actually appears on all posts and then can be removed in a few seconds.
haha that’s pretty clever, thanks for the tips forest! simple but helps you know.
No probs, thanks for reading.
Are you already in Cairo? I hope you’re near the water. Good Luck
yep there now…. Not too far from the Nile but not what I would call close. Luckily the area we have moved into is pretty green. It’s called Maadi and is about 5miles south of downtown.
These are really important tips. Thanks for outlining exactly how to schedule posts. I’ve been meaning to do this, and now I have the instructions lined out in easy to follow steps. This was a post that’s helped me, thanks!
No problem. I really wish I had followed my own advice when I went away!
Haha yeah… me to…
Yep scheduling is the best way to take some time off from blogging
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