How To Make Sure You’re Prepared for Blogging Woes

The Blogging world… the next frontier.

You’re running a blog? Congrats!

You’re thinking of starting a blog? Congrats, it’s an awesome, exciting world out there.

 

You probably already know how much there is involved in the blogging – the planning, the writing, the proofreading, the publishing, the promoting, the scheduling, the social media platforms, the interaction on your blog, the interaction on your social media… there’s a lot involved. Even the best planning can’t plan for everything. Lemme ask you something?

 

Are you prepared for if things go wonky or a complete & utter shutdown in the blogging world?

 

Tessa Williams over at Bella Creative  posted a great thought provoking picture the other day in her Cultivate Hustle Facebook group. She asked the question about how do we engage with our clients, viewers and future business offline. She asked what is there was no social media, there was no Facebook and possibly even no internet? Would you be able to still do business or would things come to a halt?

 

Well Hello.

Mind.

Is.

Blown.

 

Personally, I worry about this as a blog writer, especially as a new blogger.. What if my laptop decides to keel over? What if my wifi or internet tower goes out for awhile? What if there is a power outage or a really bad storm?  It’s easy to get wrapped up in the What Ifs in the blogging world. Same goes for your business/store. What if your clients weren’t able to get ahold of you to purchase your product(s) or get technical support? However, those who are more established, this could certainly be a very harsh blow.

 

As a blogger, I keep things in binders. I have all kinds of different color binders for all major bloggers that I keep track of (think of them as Content Upgrade Keeper). I write all my blogs in Microsoft Word documents first and then copy them over to WordPress when I’m done. I print out hard copies of my published blog posts just in case EVERYTHING was to disappear. As much as it would be a pain in the butt, I could technically rewrite them. I also back everything up on USB/jump drives as well as Google Drive. (Do you use some form of Cloud server – Google Drive, Microsoft One Drive, one provided by your domain/host or from your cell phone provider?). I also keep my emails backed up and organized fairly decently. I keep all incoming newsletter filtered to go into the Forums tab in Gmail. I keep all social media related items in the Social tab.

 

Of course, you could save yourself this trouble with some time management for security and backup/restore protection.

 

Krista Rae over at Krista Rae Co. has a great free security e-course about how to make sure you’re backup and protected. She also offers security, protection and monitoring [plug-in] update services in case it gets completely confusing and/or you don’t want that hassle. Hello! http://kristarae.co/wordpress-maintenance-packages/

 

I also highly recommend these very popular plug-ins to help keep your blog or business secure

• Jetpack – I have a feature set up so that it tells me when my blog goes down and when it comes back up

• Askimet – spam protection

• Softaculous – backup of your blog

• Loginizer – if someone tries to hack into your blog and incorrectly, it will lock out your blog or business and alert you the way you tell it to

• Wordfence – antivirus, firewall and high speed cache (although I recommend having another antivirus like AVG, Norton or McAfee and WebRoot)

• UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore – ditto

 

So now that you have some ideas on how to keep your blog or business secure, think of some ways of how you could interact with your clients or readers JUST IN CASE things get really wonky or a complete shutdown? What if the blogging world just shut down for an unknown or an definite time?

For me, I keep a digital copy of my mailing list. It’s currently not very big, so it’s easy to maintain right now. That way if I lost everything, I could contact my list. I do the same thing with everyone who I get a newsletter from. Law requires us to put out an actual, real address. For those who I work with, I have their addresses written down in an address book just for blogging in case I need to mail out physical items. As for my readers, I would type out my blogs and pictures and would send it the good old snail mail way.

 

How would you keep your business going and/or stay in contact with your clients or readers?

 

Share with me your ideas, thoughts and plans for backing up your blog or business. I would love to hear your thoughts as well as any programs or plugins that you recommend. Knowledge is power right?

 

Shine bright

<3 Jenn