My Blog = My Life: blogging things to think about

Well, I just went on my first major vacation as a blogger. It was a 20 day vacation to visit my brother in England, far from my home battle station PC. And with summer in full-swing, chances are you'll be going on a few vacations of your own. So, what have I learned about blogging while on vacation? And what will I probably do differently next time? A few things. On both counts.

There were three ways I could go about blogging while away. First, I could not blog at all and pick it up when I got back. Second, I could repost some of my older popular posts (a common thing to do in the blogging world). Third, I could keep fresh posts coming each day. Obviously the third option would be the biggest commitment. And, despite what some women might think, I'm not afraid of commitment, so I took door number three. ;)

To not blog at all while on vacation is to shoot yourself in the foot (as I learned by not blogging here on WW4F). A big rule of blogging is that you should post often enough that people always have a reason to come back. In this big, fat, crazy internet world we live in, people will forget you pretty quickly if you disappear. It will probably take me a little while to remind everybody that was following that I still have posts coming on WW4F. Others will never find their way back, I'm sure. If I had it to do over, I would have prewritten and pre-scheduled several posts for WW4F.
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I know I said I wasn't going to write on WW4F until I got back from England, but I had a few extra minutes so I thought I'd discuss an interesting phenomenon that I've seen take place since the end of May/beginning of June. It seems that summer has changed my best time to post on Single Dad Laughing in a big way.

One way that I have gauged what time is best for posting is how many of my friends are currently available on Facebook chat. Since I started using this as one of my measurements, 8 AM MST has been just as good a time as any other, and often better than any other time.

The last few weeks though, I haven't been watching it too closely and my traffic has been dropping even though I've been posting at the same time I usually do. I was surprised when I realized this, and so I started looking at different traffic influencers to see where things might be causing the dropping. What was the first thing I noticed?
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One of the big differences between the average blogger and an exceptional blogger is that an exceptional blogger always keeps a finger on the pulse of his/her blog.

Thoughts for the average blogger:

What would be good to post today?

Now, take a deep breath...

Thoughts for the exceptional blogger:
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