What to do about gaps in your blog posting

Gaps in your blog posting schedule can happen for any number of reasons.  You may be travelling, fall ill, have a family event, or maybe you’re just letting your blog go.  A lack of posting frequency can lose you readers, so what can you do about it?

Let it go

The most common outcome of a lack of posting is that it is the first sign a blog owner is letting their blog die.  Of the millions of blogs started each year relatively few get past the initial burst of “Hello world!”, “Here’s this cool thing I found today!”, “I’m eating for lunch…”, and then nothing.  It is so easy to start a blog for free that letting them go is just as easy for most people.

Make an excuse

The next most common outcome of a lack of posting is an excuse post explaining the absence, maybe apologising for it, and usually promising a renewed commitment to posting more often.  The “Sorry I haven’t posted in a while but…” post is very often the last one before the blog is simply let go.

Use it for a post idea

What am I doing right now?  My last post was the 11th of August followed by a two week gap and now I’m writing a “What to do about gaps in your blog posting” post.  Another method would be to use it as a lesson learned, such as when we travelled to New Zealand.  I had every good intention of blogging while over there but ended up running into technical difficulties and some good old fashioned poor planning.

Just get on with it

Quite frankly this is my preferred approach.  I subscribe to blogs I’m interested in via RSS, and follow enough of them that if one goes quiet for a week or two it doesn’t really bother me.  I’d prefer my favourite bloggers sorted out whatever is keeping the preoccupied and then just get on with writing for their blog again when they’re ready.  It takes a pretty long gap for me to start thinking about unsubscribing, so don’t be too alarmed if you need to take a break once in a while.  Just fire up your browser and start writing again!