5 Reasons to Take A Break From Your Blog

Posted: 20 Jul 2010 09:26 PM PDT

This is a guest post by Bob Bessette. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Approximately three months ago, I had a personal loss in my family. As a result of that loss, I took a much-needed break from blogging. It ended up being about two months of posting nothing to my blog, or anyone else's, for that matter.

Just within the past few weeks I've been getting back into the swing of posting to my blog and this is my first guest post since that break. I've learned a few things during this hiatus, not the least of which is that the break that I took was extremely beneficial. Why, you might ask?

1. Gives you time to reflect

What I realized, when I actually had the time to think about it, was that blogging was introducing a lot of stress into my life. The stress wasn't because I didn't enjoy writing my posts. The stress was caused by the pressure I was putting on myself by trying to adhere to a regular posting interval. Since I have started my blogging back up, I have vowed not to let some set posting interval determine when I publish a post. I understand that this goes against all conventional wisdom when it comes to blogging. But I really don't care. I do this because I love it and I run the show, not conventional wisdom.

2. Revitalizing

I think we all need a break from things every now and then. Whether it be taking college classes or working extra hours at our regular jobs. We need to get away from it for a while. Granted, by taking a break from my blogging, my Alexa rating went from roughly 150K to 400K. I worked really hard to get it down to 150K, but now I am determined to work to get it back there, and even lower. Daniel allowing me to guest post here on Daily Blog Tips, is certainly a step in the right direction. I have a renewed vigor and energy to work on my blog and improve the content. I am revitalized and I know that, without that break, I wouldn't feel this renewed vigor.

3. Therapeutic

As stated earlier, I was feeling the stress of having to post regularly to my blog. Once I was able to get away from the process for a while, the stress disappeared. It was extremely therapeutic for me. The thing is, I didn't make a conscious decision to stop blogging. It was a personal loss in my family that consumed my life. I don't think I could've written anything even if I tried. But, I realized, after it was forced on me, that I truly needed the break. I think sometimes we get so entrenched in doing something that we don't realize that it may be adding stress to our lives. If I was to give you a bit of advice, take a step back and ask yourself "Is blogging still fun for me?" If the answer is "No", then I suggest that a break may be just what the doctor ordered.

4. Reinforces your love of writing

Running a blog can be extremely time-consuming. Anyone who is reading this, assuming you run your own blog, understands that fact. Sometimes we get so caught up in the process, that we forget why we started blogging in the first place. I started my blog because I have always enjoyed writing. Taking that break reminded me how much I truly do love to write. It's been something I've loved since I was a child sending actual snail-mail letters to loved ones across the country. If you find your love of writing waning from the pressure of blogging, a break may just remind you how much you do love to write.

5. Helps you appreciate your blogging buddies

I have met a number of special people through my blog. A number of these blogging friends contacted me when they noticed that there was a break in my blog posts. They felt that there must've been something wrong in my world, and they were right. The kindness that these friends showed me was touching. Granted, these are people I have never met in person, and they went out of their way to send their best wishes. It really gives you an appreciation not only of blogging friends, but of humanity.

I hope, for your sake, that a break in your blogging is not forced by a personal loss or tragedy in your world. But, if you are finding that blogging is adding stress to your life, consider taking a break. You may find that some time away, could revitalize you, and immeasurably improve your blog, in the long run.

About the Author: Bob Bessette writes a blog called Totally Unique Life. His blog is geared toward practical advice and strategies for life, work, and play.

Original Post: 5 Reasons to Take A Break From Your Blog

Four Simple Steps For Big Gains In Page Speed

Posted: 20 Jul 2010 09:00 PM PDT

This is a guest post by Greg Hayes. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

With the recent announcement that Google will formally include page load speed as a ranking factor, I've started looking at this subject pretty closely. What I've discovered is there are a handful of simple things that one can do to make big gains in page load times. Below you’ll find four of them.

1. Remove slow loading site elements that don’t add value

Take a hard look at the load times of those buttons and badges in your sidebar (and elsewhere) on your site. On many sites, these account for very little (if any) traffic, and can be removed. One good tool to view their effect on load times is Pingdom Tools, which will show the how rapidly different parts of your site are loaded.

2. Get a solid theme

Up until several months ago, I was using one of the "solid" free Wordpress themes. It's well-known and even supported, but after seeing how my site was loading, I finally decided to plunk down the cash to see if it would actually make a difference. While I have no doubt that there are some very fast free themes out there, I have little doubt that, for me, premium theme was worth every penny.

3. Get a Content Delivery Network

This was a new one to me. Content delivery networks (CDN) work by caching your data around the globe, so that static pages on your site are more rapidly accessible to your visitors. This makes your site "appear" to load faster.

From what I can tell, at one time, deploying a CDN was a very expensive proposition. But with the introduction of Amazon Cloudfront, you'll get the advantage of delivering your content from Amazon's servers, while only being charged for the amount of data your transfer. Costs are low, and the improvements in speed are worth every penny.

4. Install W3 Total Cache

Every Wordpress blog needs a caching plugin. I was running WP Super Cache, which was working well, so I was hesitant to change. But after making the leap, I can say with complete honesty that W3 Total Cache is a far superior plugin. It takes some work to configure properly because it's so powerful, and I managed to screw a few things up along the way, but it was definitely worth the effort. Not only that, but support for the plugin is awesome.

W3TC makes setting up Amazon Cloudfront a transparent process, and incorporates caching, as well as minification of .css and .js files. I'm still in the process of working through how best implement its features, but between Pingdom and PageSpeed, I'm convinced implementing this tool has reduced my load times by at least 30%.

What other tips do you have to reduce the load time of web pages?

About The Author: Greg Hayes is the author of Live Fit Blog, where he blogs about living fit while balancing the challenges of daily life.

Original Post: Four Simple Steps For Big Gains In Page Speed

TUGAS

Rabu, 21 Juli 2010