Best Blogging Practices: 10 Practical Truths that I’ve Learned the Hard Way

Things have been a little slow here at Blog Bloke central because of technical problems, so I thought I would shake things up with an article that I think you will all enjoy.

This is not intended to be a holier than thou post expounding my lofty advice. But rather, after my recent blog problems I was humbly reminded of 10 things that we all need to practice, because you just never know when it all might go wrong. 

1. Let Twitter cover your back as an announcement tool if things should go wrong.

You need an online app to keep in touch with your readers if your blog goes down. I’ve been using Twitter ever since it first opened up for business, mostly because I was intrigued and wanted to check it out. Honestly, I think a lot of people waste way too much time on it. But twice now it has save my butt as an emergency tool when the blog was down to make announcements and keep in touch with my Blokesters.

Much thanks Twitter.

Twitter can also be handy for getting information and advice from others when it is needed most. So my advice is to get Twitter, and if you haven’t already please consider following my Twitter account (for just in case).

2. Don’t be so quick to upgrade. Especially if it is a major upgrade. You can tell if it’s major upgrade by the version number. Usually a two-decimal point version change means that it’s only a minor bug fix – e.g. from 2.1 to 2.1.1. Those are usually safe.

But if it jumps up a number like Wordpress did from 2.3 to 2.5, check the upgrade log and you will probably see that they’ve also added some new features as well.

That tells you there is a good chance there will be bugs that need fixing and to stay away until at least the next minor upgrade (i.e. 2.5.1 for example).

Of course in the Wordpress example there were also security fixes included, so that’s a judgment call only you can decide for yourself. But keep your ear to the ground and listen to what other bloggers are saying who were brave enough to make the upgrade and see if they are happy with it.

Let them be the victimser, I mean beta testers. Even then, it’s still no certainty everything will be fine because your theme and plugins are not the same, so your blog could still react quite differently.

Which brings me to another point. Not all plugins will work with a newer version of Wordpress.

So if you have a plugin that you can’t live without, check with the plugin creator first and see if there are any issues reported, or if there is another version that you will need to upgrade for it to work. If there isn’t, then if the plugin is important enough to you, maybe you should consider waiting awhile until the plugin creator offers an upgrade.

3. Do your upgrades late at night or when most of your readers are offline. Even better, wait until the weekend when you will have more time to work on it and there is less traffic, just in case something goes wrong.

4. That also means not doing anything during peak traffic time that might potentially cause problems such as changes to your theme\template. Remember, Murphy’s Law rules and if anything can go wrong, it probably will.

5.  If you are a Wordpress user, upgrade or add new plugins only one at a time per day. Don’t make the mistake of adding a lot of plugins all at once. Why? Because some plugins might conflict, and if you add too many at once it will be harder to figure out which one is the culprit.

So take your time and test your blog until you are certain that everything is ok before adding another plugin.

6. Keep a log of what changes you’ve made, so if you have a leaky brain like me you can see at glance your recent changes and revert it back again if you have to.

7. Keep a backup blog online, or in my case I have two backup blogs. When I left Blogger I said I would never go back, and recent events have reminded me (again) to never say “never”. 

Was I ever glad to find Blogger was still waiting for me during my downtime so I could continue blogging. I also keep another backup at Wordpress.com just in case (because you “never” know) for times like the other day when Blogger was also down.

But remember to set your backup blogs as private and to not be seen by the search engines when you’re not using them. Otherwise you will be penalized by Google for duplicate content.

8. You’ve probably heard this before, that you should always make regular backups. But I recommend taking that one step further and keep regular backups of your data on your computer, CDs or an external hard drive, as well as online. 

Your Wordpress dashboard allows you to export your posts and your CPanel should also have a backup feature for the entire database. But don’t forget to download a copy of it onto your hard drive as well. Blogger also has a feature for backing up your posts and your template.

9. Make a Contingency Plan.This was a wake-up call for me, and if there’s one thing I learned from this episode it’s that we are held hostage to our blog hosts no matter who it may be. Whether we pay for it to be hosted or it is provided for free by Google, unless we host our own server we will always be vulnerable to the whims of our hosts.

So as for me I’m going to have a backup plan just in case another situation like this should ever happen again.

10. Be patient and keep your cool. This is probably the best advice I can give and the hardest to follow. Being a reactive type personality myself (as well as being half Irish) I have to constantly guard against my anger. Especially when I’m feeling threatened or frustrated.

On the other hand I’m also a very patient person, but I still have my limits. So it’s good to know what your limits are and to not allow your frustrations get the better of you. Otherwise you just might end up in an electronic fistfight with the same people from whom you need assistance.

So keep your cool, walk away for awhile or take a nap. Chances are when you return you will see things in a different light and find the answer you’re looking for.

The bottom line is you should have your contingency plans prepared, take all necessary precautions, and if the worst should happen don’t let it get the better of you. Always remember that no matter how bad things may look, it can still be fixed. A little elbow grease and patience goes a long way.

Well that’s it for me. That’s all I can think of for now. Do you have anything you’ve learned that you can share with the rest of us?