The Bloggers Holiday: How To Manage Your Blog While You Are On Vacation

My wife and I on holiday last year

One of the beauties about blogging is that it works for you even while you sleep.

You know that when you go to bed at night, your loyal blog will stay awake, attracting potential customers and dancing its way through the search engines introducing itself to people.

This is great for obvious reasons, but we also know that a blog won’t look after itself.

The best blogs are tended to full-time by passionate people who understand that there is no such thing as a free ride. Creating a blog and then walking away from it is pointless.

Which brings me to an issue about blogging. What do we do while we’re on vacation, and our blog is left for a while to fend for itself?

Blogs are sociable creatures, and they like attention. Like any offspring, they also require sustenance and nourishment to make them thrive.

The fattest, most well-adjusted blogs get a healthy dose of maintenance and upkeep every day, in addition to new posts and trackbacks.

Making the harrowing decision to go away for a while

If you’ve been a blogger for a while, you may have experienced the nervous tension which comes from the prospect of leaving your beloved blog in order to go on vacation.

While on the one hand the fact that you are getting a holiday at all suggests you are doing well as a business owner, on the other hand walking away can feel as if you are abandoning a needy and defenceless child.

However, holidaying is important to us, and we need to be brave about it!

Ways around neglecting your blog

With technology making us ever more mobile, it is of course possible to go abroad on vacation and still work every day. You can use your cell phone to check in every day, monitor comments and upload posts.

If you are even more dedicated, you can take your laptop with you and pretend you haven’t gone away at all.

While this is great from a business perspective, it’s not ideal for people around you who are expecting you to be eating ice cream, sleeping in all morning and trekking off to see historical monuments and do a bit of diving.

If you’re at risk of neglecting your family or spouse because of your blog attachment, then it could really be time to walk away from it for a while.

One of the most up-and-coming business services at the moment is that of the Virtual Personal Assistant. The Virtual PA is just like a real PA, and can be hired for relatively little cost to keep your business in order while you jet off to sunnier climes.

Here’s how it works…

You brief your PA beforehand

A good Virtual PA company will give you a single point of contact who will get in touch before you hand over your business, and get to know every detail about you and your company.

They’ll learn how you work, how you deal with queries and requests, and how to pick up the reins for you in your absence. They’ll understand what to do in an emergency, and what needs doing every day to keep your business ticking over while you are gone.

You walk away, leaving your business behind

You go on vacation, and your Virtual PA logs on for you every day and stays ahead of all your queries and comments. If you are savvy, you will have uploaded your posts in draft to WordPress, and all your PA has to do is pop them live for you or you could schedule them to go live at certain dates/times.

You have the time of your life on vacation

You do some scuba diving, put weight on, drink too much and get lots of sleep, while your PA baby-sits your blog for you. You come home refreshed, and no-one even figured out you were away.

Job done!

This may not work for everyone, but I wanted to let you know that there are other options out there than being chained to your desk day after day.

Remember why you wanted to work for yourself in the first place? I’m betting vacations featured in the list of benefits!

How do you maintain your blog while away on vacation? Please share your views in the comments below.

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