Blogging Problems: What to Do When Your Blog is Offline, 11 Activities

By: Janice Wald | October 7, 2017 | Tags: bloggers, blogging problems |

What to Do When Your Blog Is Offline: 11 Activities

by Ryan Biddulph

Panic.

Frayed nerves.

Fingernails terrorized, worn down to the cuticles.

The old me flipped out when my blog went offline.

Whether a hack-a-fest targeted my blog or the culprit was scheduled maintenance, I feared….loss. I’d lose traffic, profits, comments and my online reputation if my blog went down for more than 5 minutes. Or so I thought.

The modern-day me laughs at that old fool. I have since learned that when your blog is offline it can be a fabulous blessing.

My blog is offline now at least 24 hours due to scheduled maintenance. I am as calm as a Buddhist monk after 15 glasses of warm milk.

If you are as nervous as a gazelle who mistakenly wandered into a lion pride when your blog goes down, engage in these 11 activities to feel good about the planned – or unplanned – downtime.

1: Enjoy Your Time Offline

I spent a few hours today chasing my 15-month niece around the house.

Imagine a little Tasmanian Devil with the feistiness of a wolverine combined with the cuteness of a meme-worthy kitten, barreling through the place like a bat out of hell.

Challenging, but fun day.

This is tip #1 because pulling back from blogging is my favorite strategy for boosting my creativity and recharging my batteries.

Seize this opportunity to spend more time with the family. Watch a movie. Or watch a few episodes of Netflix.

Even though I worked a fair amount today…..Ray Donovan is calling me. The Showtime show, not my Northern New Jersey Irish neighbor.

2: Answer Questions on Quora

As of this writing, I have received 128,000 views on my answers.

That’s quite a few peepers on Blogging From Paradise.

Since my blog is offline today I will spend more time on Quora than usual.

Answer questions. Establish your authority. Help people. Get ideas for a future blog post (Works nicely with tips #5 and #6).

[Read: How to Be a Better Blogger with Quora]

3: Free Up Space by Deleting Old Files on Your Laptop

Or in my case, free up space on Google Drive by deleting old, dated files on my Chromebook.

Doesn’t it feel good to do Cyber Spring Cleaning?

Trash featured images. Delete submitted and published guest posts. Speed up your lappy. Increase your efficiency.

4: Contribute to Facebook Groups

Be an active contributor on Facebook Groups. Help people. Answer questions.

Helping people on the Blogging Boost Facebook Group run by my friend Elizabeth Kelsey Bradley has boosted (pun intended) my online exposure pronto.

If your blog is down you may as well help fellow bloggers and make new blogging buddies. When your blog goes live, don’t be surprised if you see a sudden spike in both traffic and opt-ins.

5: Write a Guest Post

Exhibit A; I am writing this post while Blogging From Paradise lays cyber dormant.

This is guest post #3 of the day. #4 will be done in 90 minutes.

Use your blog downtime to improve your blog up time on other blogs.

Write a guest post. Or 4.

6: Write Your Next Blog Post

Tomorrow’s blog post is done, save a quick re-read for quality assurance purposes.

Write your next blog post. Or write your next 4 blog posts. If you post weekly you got the next month covered.

7: Email Your Customers and Clients to Touch Base

I Liked an Instagram update published by one of my blogging course customers a few minutes ago and posted a comment.

What an easy way to touch base, to re-connect and to strengthen your bond.

Ditto for emailing customers or clients.

8: Direct Readers to Non-Blog Real Estate

I spent a few minutes Tweeting links to my eBooks on Amazon and Selz, as well as my blogging course on Selz.

Email your list with direct links to products and services hosted offsite. Boost sales. Spread awareness.

Note: This is why it helps to host some or all products and eBooks offsite. When your blog goes offline for periodic or unexpected reasons – aka hack job – you can generate sales and build your blogging reputation through various online channels.

9: Exercise

I ran 20 miles already this week so today is an off day yet I will walk for 45 minutes tonight to keep my energy flowing.

Exercise. Capitalize on your great fortune; being forced to abandon your blog for 1 day can alert you to a possible half-baked commitment to fitness. I assure you that a full devotion to staying fit (mentally and physically) is the chief component of my prolific guest posting campaign.

10: Ask People to Interview You

Why not?

I just completed a text interview this morning plus I received another interview request via a Facebook message.

Increase your visibility. Inspire a new audience. Ask bloggers to interview you.

11: Research Hosting Possibilities

I ain’t taking a shot at your current host if your blog downtime is for maintenance.

But….if you are not keen on frequent downtime or “snail stuck in molasses on a blustery winter day slow” load speeds shop around when your blog is down.

I recommend reading this tremendous resource at WHSR [Web Hosting Secrets Revealed]:

WHSR Hosting Reviews – The Best Web Hosting List 2017

Bonus Tip

Double down on personal development.

Barring the arrival of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I meditate for 20 minutes and do 20 minutes of yoga after waking up every single day. Toss in a quick icy cold shower and I am good to go.

Devote the time you normally spend checking and responding to comments toward beefing up your personal development.

The other day, a mad prolific, skilled, renowned blogger called me the most prolific blogger on earth (after the bribe money hit his bank account; that’s a joke). The years I spent working on my energy daily before touching my laptop helped make me prolific, energetic, creative, and, heck, a full-time pro blogger.

Go within. Change the without.

Your Turn

What tips can you add to this list?

About the Author

Ryan Biddulph is a blogger, author and world traveler who’s been featured on Richard Branson’s Virgin Blog, Forbes, Fox News, Entrepreneur, Positively Positive, Lifehack, John Chow Dot Com and Neil Patel Dot Com. He has written and self-published 126 bite-sized eBooks on Amazon. Ryan can help you build a successful blog at Blogging From Paradise.

Host blogger’s comments:

Readers, please share so other bloggers know blogging problems are no cause for panic. Take advantage of the opportunity to complete the 11 activities Ryan suggested while waiting for your blogging problems to go away.

10 Tips to Blog When You Have ZERO Time to Blog

Share on Facebook

Rex Trulove

My problem yesterday wasn’t with my blogs, but with my computer. I had to reimage and restore my system. That is something I did about every 9 months when I was a technical engineer, but I got out of the habit, so I had 2 years worth of accumulated junk, conflicts, etc, that needed to be wiped clean. lol

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Yikes Rex. That is a lot of stuff. Breathing deeply and rolling with it is always the key.
  
  Reply to this message
JOHN MULINDI

Sometime when you are rewinding, that is when you get great blog ideas. Most of the time I get my next blogging topic when am relaxing and even plan when to write it, otherwise thanks for sharing with us this insightful post.

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Exactly John. My down time is always productive because I get away from everything, relax, and those ideas flow in easily.
  
  Reply to this message
Lea

What a great list!! Thank you. I’ll keep this in mind when I start my blog. As someone who doesn’t have a blog now and never has for what it’s worth if I go to a blog that I’m already familiar with and their site is down (that rarely ever happens) I would go back again. I guess the only time that might hurt a blogger is the first time someone has ever tried to go to their site? What do I know?

My blog will be about making quilts so if my site is down I’ll always have a quilt to work on.

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Sounds like it’ll be a fun blog Lea. As for first time visitors, this is part of surrendering. Meaning, the more chill and relaxed we are, the first time visitors will just tend to revisit later versus leaving forever. Always our energy which dictates the situation.
  
  Reply to this message
Kathryn Maclean

Hi Ryan,
Great list. I wrote out all the ones I should do when my site is down.
Family time with Netflix. No binging!
Answer questions on Quora. I have an account need to spend some time there. Saved link to read.
Free Up Space deleting files Good One! Periodically I do this but not a regular basis.
Hosting some products and eBooks offsite. Now, this is a smart idea!!
Exercise commitment. Go for a walk. Need to do this EVERY DAY, but don’t.
Ask bloggers to interview you. Interview via Facebook message was interesting, never thought of that.
Personal development goes for responding to comments.I do every day.

Great stuff Thanks!

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Great deal Kathryn. I am glad you enjoyed these ideas.
  
  Reply to this message
Barbara Radisavljevic

For three days my cable connection has been coming and going and I couldn’t depend on anything online for any length of time. Fortunately, I could still save my work when the connection came up again and didn’t lose any. When the connection was too bad to get anything done, I caught up on filing physical paper I was behind one and a bit of housework.

While my cable phone was going in and out, I discovered on blog was down. I couldn’t even get into my control panel, so I was down until I could call my host. The Siteground technician had the site back up in a few seconds. If I’d known it was that easy I would have called sooner and not lost two days offline.

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Tech can be miracle workers sometimes Barbara. Mine was scheduled maintenance, but still, they got it up more quickly than I thought.
  
  Reply to this message
Vishwajeet Kumar

Hello Ryan,

Great Post Bro. You always nailed it. I am always keep my site alive and it is one of my priority. However When I was not working online, I prefer to write content and making strategies for my blog promotion. Keeping your blog online is very important to become a successful blogger. Thanks for this great tips.

have a great day 🙂
Vishwajeet

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Yep Vish. Writing offline and thinking through your blogging campaign is smart blogging bro. Thanks much.
  
  Reply to this message
Carol Graham

I do most of these except numbers 11 and 5. I also use the time to find pictures for future posts I had already downloaded

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Smart Carol, very smart. Way to use offline time effectively.
  
  Reply to this message
Nick

Hi Ryan,
Good to see you here, thanks for sharing your experience. This guide is really awesome I loved it so much.

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Hi Nick, glad you enjoyed it.
  
  Reply to this message
liza

I do most of these except numbers 11 and 5. I also use the time to find pictures for future posts I had already downloaded

Reply to this message
Joy Healey

Hi Ryan,

Downtime used to be a major hassle for me because my site hosting was flaky and my sites kept getting hacked. Finally I bit the bullet and got decent hosting and I can’t remember the last time my site was down for more than a few minutes in a month. (I get reports from Pingdom to tell me.) Likewise there have been times when my ISP was impossible to love with, but again I changed suppliers until I found one that works. (Can you believe that in 2015, in a suburb of London, I was “too far from the exchange” for THREE ISPs. Finally went to cable and won’t switch away.)

However, if my blog were to go down at the moment I would continue the spring clean of my HOUSE!! It’s creaking with 30+ years of accumulated clutter. It’s a good feeling to be thinning it out finally.

Oh Quora – i really MUST get back on there!! I enjoyed it too, so no reason not to!

Thanks for some great tips.

Joy Healey – Blogging After Dark

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Yep Joy I had such a similar experience with my hosting in the past. I paid up and began to play up in higher blogging circles, as my site was up virtually all the time and super quick too. Thanks for the comment.
  
  Reply to this message
Blossom Smith

Your guest blogging tip is gold. I’ve noticed that myself. Not only does guest blogging on relevant niche blogs develops a relationships with the blogger influence but the referred traffic is also bigger than from large media outlets. Actually, leaving meaningful comments on blogs with an engaged audience got me more referred traffic than publishing articles in renowned travel magazines. Thanks for the article!

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  That blog commenting and guest posting 1-2 punch works awesome Blossom.
  
  Reply to this message
candy

Read your tips with interest and now know not to freak out. Honestly I don’t freak out anyway. I spend the time checking out other blogs and seeing what is going on. Found you on Bloggers Pit Stop.

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Good stuff Candy, glad you are cool as a cucumber.
  
  Reply to this message
candy

Now I know not to freak out, honestly I didn’t freak out anyway. I spend the time checking out other bloggers. Found you on Bloggers Pit Stop

Reply to this message
Susan Velez

Hi Ryan,

Love it, you’ve definitely given us a lot of things that we can continue working on if our blog goes down. I’ve actually been pretty lucky.

My blog has gone down once due to a bad storm. We lost our Internet for about 5 hours.

During that time I was still able to create blog posts. I actually have a duplicate of my blog set up on localhost.

This is what I use for demonstrations on my YouTube channels. The great thing is that I don’t need the Internet to work on it.

Since it’s offline, I can work anywhere as long as I have my computer and laptop.

So I spent the day writing new articles for my blog. Once the Internet came back. I just took those blog posts and scheduled them to my live blog.

Easy peasy, helped me get my articles written in advance for a couple weeks. I love it when I’m ahead on my blog, helps me focus on other things like guest blogging.

Thanks for taking the time to share your day’s activities with us. I have no doubt that you niece wore you out 🙂

Have a great day 🙂

Susan

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Good deal Susan. You being super tech savvy, I know you had a strategy or 2 for offline stuff, in your cyber pocket 😉 She certainly did LOL!
  
  Reply to this message
Debbie

I really enjoyed these sensible, no nonsense tips. I think it’s always good to have a break from blogging whether it’s enforced or by choice. These tips are great ideas to do regularly. Thanks for sharing at Bloggers Pit Stop.

Reply to this message
- Ryan Biddulph
  
  Thanks a bunch for reading Debbie.
  
  Reply to this message
Sara

Ryan, blogging setbacks happen. I can empathize with those who earn their funds with page views (adsense). Traffic is their life.

Maintenance is always better than creepy hackers, isn’t it?

Taking a positive spin on something that most feel is annoying is a great way to get by.

Remember dial-up? Talk about slow!

You’re doing well if downtime is only 24-hours.

Answering questions, hosting an FB live or Periscope sounds just like you. You need to get your message out there in order to pay the bills and live a fun filled life of island hopping. 😉

I’m all for a good digital spring cleaning.

Do the same for your inbox. Delete those old emails and unsubscribe from just about every list. You don’t need someone’s agenda stealing your time (unless of course, you choose to allow your time to be usurped).

Enjoy, ^_^

Reply to this message
Melinda J Mitchell

Thanks, Ryan! I’m in particular need of these tips right now, since I’m trying to build my new website. EEKS!!

Reply to this message
- Janice Wald
  
  What new website? The BbFf is always the last to know.
  
  Reply to this message
  - Melinda J Mitchell
    
    BBFFJ, I haven’t announced it yet, because it’s still blank!! I’m having trouble getting it going. Don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know!
    BBFFM
    
    Reply to this message
    - Janice Wald
      
      I am totally in suspense! Are you moving to self-hosted??
      
      Reply to this message
      - Melinda J Mitchell
        
        Yes!! Thanks to your encouragement!
      - Janice Wald
        
        So proud of you!
Sandra L Garth

These are fantastic tips even if your blog isn’t offline. Thank you!

Reply to this message