ASL Transcript: Since March 2020 where COVID-19 hits us in America, I stopped blogging. I didn’t give notice; I didn’t preschedule posts. I just stopped. It was a stupid idea, I knew that, but I did it anyway.
You see, I’ve been really busy with ImaginASL Performing Arts transition into Virtual events and had not doing Theatre on stage lately, and when a COVID-19, Rioter going on, fire in Colorado, and a lot of angry all over USA between Red and Blue came up, I just didn’t have the intense to go through pre-writing posts and contacting guest posters. I figured everything would be fine for a while I was gone, what’s the worst that could happen?
The Negative Impact of a Poorly Executed Blogging Series
By letting my blog go flow for a few months, I suffered the effects of my action. Naturally during the series my traffic suffered, going downward during the months of silence. Once I came back, it wasn’t immediately business as usual. For a few months, my traffic was lower than usual, and it’s only getting back to normal levels now.
My ranking also suffered. It had been inching down slowly and steadily. When I checked it at the beginning of this week after I post new film of “Ember at…..” on halloween, it had started to reverse that trend. As anyone who is chasing their ranking knows, this isn’t what we want to see!
Luckily, I didn’t lose any twitter followers or subscribers or facebook followers, but if I’d taken a longer break, I imagine I would’ve started shedding those too.
How to Successfully Take a Blogging Series
Taking a break from blogging can be a great way to step away from the day to day and get some perspective. If done properly, it’s easy to take a break while still bringing the same great content to your readers. Your traffic won’t suffer, but you’ll come back ready to write and vlogs again.
When taking a blogging series, try and schedule the same number of posts as would go up in your normal blogging schedule. In this arena, guest posts can come in handy because the guest poster can be responsible for promoting the post on social networks and responding to comments.
Most fellow bloggers are more than happy to contribute if they know there’s a need. Make sure you don’t leave this to the last minute, give people a chance to get their writing done!
Prewriting and prescheduling posts can also be a useful tool for the blogging series. The only downside is that if you’re taking a true break, you probably won’t be around to respond to the comments.
Again, having an extra set of hands can be very useful, and hiring someone just for the week to take care of promotion and commenting can give peace of mind. Having several generic posts that aren’t time or season sensitive written in advance is a very easy way to get these prescheduled posts sorted out before taking a break from blogging.
Taking a Blogging Series Has Benefits
Taking a break from blogging has many benefits. It is a chance to bring new and original content to my blog in the form of guest posts. It is a chance to relax and remember why I started blogging in the first place. This is exactly what happened to me as it had been a year since I started.
Even though I did absolutely none of the things I suggested above, I still came back to my blog with new ideas. I also realized just how much I missed blogging and doing film episodes of “Ember at…..” for you American Sign Language Community. I felt like I’d missed so many good posts in the months I’d been gone. Next time though, I’m going to do it right.
