How To Avoid Taking Seasonal Blogging Breaks | TDOC

Around this time of year, bloggers drop of the scene in turn for blogging breaks, which, in the long run, makes a lot of sense. The holiday season is a busy one with buying presents, sorting out the big days meal and making sure that Auntie Susan and Nanna Marie don't kill each other over some brussel sprouts - it can take a lot out of you, so to keep on blogging throughout it all? Well, some people just don't have it in them, but I believe you can continue to blog without actually having to be around to see it happen. There's a few little handy tricks and unknown websites that will help you plan ahead and see you through the long winter nights, and unbeknownst to your followers, your online presence will be around, even if you aren't.

1. Plan Ahead and Prepare Your Posts

Preparation is probably the most important thing you can do if you're going to try and keep your blog active around the holidays when you aren't there to watch out for it. Making sure you have the right number of posts for the amount of time you're hoping to cover is the important thing, and in most cases, I'd recommend having a few more posts than you have days you'll be posting, just in case you want to take another few days off, or something comes up that you weren't expecting. Preparing posts is a great habit to get into to, not even to make blogging easier for you, but in case you struggle with the creativity needed to have a regular post written and posted on the day. Whether or not the posts you write are seasonal, themed or just your regular posts, make sure you have them prepared and set to published on set dates and certain times, or else the next few steps won't help you one little bit.

2. Schedule Your Posts and Create Permalinks/Slugs

It's important that you schedule your posts once you've got them prepared. Choosing which days to post and making sure you have a note of the permalink (Blogger) or the slug (Wordpress) or better still, have customised them for the best SEO work possible. If you're not sure how to go about that, I have a post that'll teach you about customising permalinks on Blogger, and Ashley has one on customising slugs for Wordpress, so do check them out if you haven't already and work your blog around you. Once you've got your posts ready and waiting for you're magic tricks, it's time to get onto the good stuff.

3. Get Your Bum On Buffer and Schedule Your Social Sites

Now, I have already covered how awesome Buffer is and why you should be using it, as have many other bloggers like Lauren, Melyssa and Jessica, but for people who are just too busy to be reading those right now and want a quick run-down on Buffer, it's a program that allows you to schedule your social media updates in regular intervals. You can connect your Twitter, Facebook Account or Page, Linkedin, Google+, and even Pinterest account and set up updates to happen while you're away. Pretty awesome, right?

Well, for just $10 (£6.60) a month, or $102 (£67.28) a year, you can schedule a whopping 100 updates in total on your social media accounts, and I'll tell you what - it's on the wisest amounts of money you can spend on blogging (- if spending money on blogging is your thing, for some of us, it isn't, so for us, we can use Buffer for free and get 10 updates scheduled, the choice is yours)! You can cancel your payments at anytime, which is perfect if you just want to cover yourself for a small amount of time. Alas, there is a little trick that makes this step all the more fabulous.

That permalink or slug you found/created in the earlier step? Well, near that, you'll find the entire web link that your post will be found through. It's usually come up looking something like this:

http://nellieandco.blogspot.com/2015/12/avoid-christmas-blogging-breaks.html

This is where the magic happens. You can schedule your Buffer posts with this URL link, even if the post hasn't been published yet, however, your post will need to have been published before the Buffered update is posted, or else your link with be faulty, not work, and be a little bit pointless. However, if your post has been automatically published on a set day, for a set time, and then your Buffer update has been scheduled for not long afterwards, then your post should be 100% scheduled, published and posted without you being around to see it done. That kids, is how magic is made.

The joy or preparing your posts through these steps is that, if you don't want to take a blogging break, or think it'll affect your blogs standards, then it's the perfect way to ensure that your followers keep getting the content they love, that your blog is still promoting that content, and you're not breaking a sweat between all the other million and one things you've got to get doing over Christmas. Unless you're a Christmas themed blog, the last thing you need is to feel the extra pressure when you're trying to wrap Katie's presents all neatly, keep the cat from getting his catnip toys and actually making sure your children sleep Christmas Eve, so set up your posts, prepare your blog for Christmas and take a much needed break. Your blog and your followers will still be here when you return.

Will You Be Taking a Blogging Break Over Christmas?