Stepping Back: 5 Ways You Can Put Your Blog On Pause Without Losing Readers

This is a guest post by Daniel Cassady.

It’s foolish to think that you can be everywhere at once, that you can do everything. Of course, most of us still try.

Bloggers are a special breed. We become so attached to our blog and our readers that sometimes it can be hard to leave them alone, even for a little while. We feel like we are doing our readers a disservice if we take a little time for ourselves.

But, dear blogger, you have a life too and if you don’t go about living it, odds are you are gonna run out of things to write about sooner or later.

So I’ve put together a few ways that you can take some time away from your blog and live your life without hurting your readers’ feelings, or leaving them in the dark (although, we all know this is really for your benefit, don’t we?).

Ready? Here we go.

Be Honest

If your blog has a steady following and you want to take a week or two off, the best thing you can do is let your loyal readers know. If they are dedicated fans, they’ll understand that everyone needs a break. If not, there is a good chance they weren’t gonna stick around that long anyways.

If you just stop posting out of the blue, people will grow tired of checking back for new posts and eventually stop checking all together. On the other hand, if you let your audience know what to expect, then they can’t be disappointed.

Offer Something

Why are you taking time off from your blog? Are you going on vacation? Having a baby? There are a million good reasons. If you need to stop posting for a while, but are worried that your audience may leave, tell them why you are leaving and promise to write about what happened while you were gone. Let them know how excited you are about your vacation, build up a little anticipation for the content that you are going to write when you get home.

Like I said before, if your readers are true fans, they’ll be happy to wait.

Follow Through

So let’s say that you told your readers you were going on vacation and that you would give them a play by play when you got home. You’d better take some notes while you’re gone.

This may sound counterintuitive, but my first suggestion for vacation writing would be to leave your computer at home. The whole point of a vacation is to enjoy yourself, not to look for a cafe with an internet connection so you can update your blog.

A notepad and pencil, on the other hand, you should always have near by. You’ll find that you only write down the truly interesting things that happen, and if you focus on jotting down quick notes instead of long passages (like you would if you were staring on at your computer), you can spend your time back at your hotel or on the plane home expanding on the notes that you took.

Grand Reserve

The best bloggers I know have a reserve pile, a stack of posts that will fit anywhere, anytime. Usually they are reviews, movies or books. Dream logs work well, too. Whenever you have some spare time, start working on a random post — the topic doesn’t matter as long as it fits with the general niche of your blog. When you’re done, file it for later use. Posts like this come in handy, and not just when you’re going on a long vacation.

If All Else Fails

Of course, sometimes, you just want to get away. From work, from the social scene, from everything, including your blog. If you don’t want to tell your readers they have to find a new place to get the latest DJ gossip or read a review of of movies that came out this week, then try this sneaky but successful tip — give your blog a complete make over.

Change themes, fonts, colors. It doesn’t take as long as you would think to switch things up, and it can give you some breathing room if you’ve become overwhelmed by the blogging lifestyle.

Plus, the new scenery may just give you something new to blog about.