I guess it’s better than talking to myself.  I recently wrote a blog post on what to do with your blog while on vacation. I offered 5 tips from leaving it altogether to posting in advance to finding some guest bloggers. I’ve decided to take my own advice. I’m gunna git’ me some guest bloggers.

The fact is Areavoices continues to astound me with it’s success. We’ve gone from a couple hundred featured blogs last year to nearly 600 hundred this week, from 100,000 people viewing each month to 250,000 people viewing this month. That’s according to Quantcast. That’s pretty amazing. The main factor behind the success is simple: the bloggers. They are providing interesting, relevant, entertaining content that people want to read. I’ve learned so much from them since starting this job back in September. Now I want to share this with you (and they were nice enough to agree).

So over the next few weeks, I’m going to provide space on this blog to some guest bloggers. I selected a handful of bloggers who continue to be among the most popular on the Areavoices platform. All of them are continually in the top ten most read blogs attracting thousands of readers every month. They write on varied topics from sports to spaghetti.

I told them they could write about whatever they’d like to write about. But I hope they’ll provide us with a little insight into what makes their blogs so popular. Tips like: what to write about, how to make a story pop, how to use pictures and video, what they like most and least about blogging, how do they work with Facebook and Twitter and what they might do differently if they started their blog today.

Let me know what else you’d like to  learn from them. And also, let me know if there is an Areavoices blogger you’d most like to hear from. If I tell them they were specially requested from you guys, they might feel the love and know they can’t say “no” to writing a guest post.

We’re deep in the heart of summer vacation season and avid bloggers might wonder, “what should I do about my blog?” It’s not like the dog, the paper or the mail. You don’t absolutely have to figure out how to handle it in your absence. But it’s worth thinking about. Here are my recommendations for what to do with your blog while you hit the beach (or the lake, or your in-laws house):

1) Let your blog have a vacation too:  It works hard. Getting commented on and Google searched – it’s exhausting! Consider just walking away for awhile. Clear your mind of all blog thoughts. Isn’t it more fun to count the little umbrellas in your drink than worry about your next blog post? The downside: your traffic will fall.

2) Blog a bit on vacation:  I know that’s kind of like being just “a little pregnant” because the true meaning of being on vacation is getting away from it all and that means your blog too. Even so, while on vacation you might find all kinds of new things to write about. There’s potential for fun photos and video as well.  The downside: What are you a machine? Sometimes your brain needs a break. You risk burnout.

3) Get ahead of the game: Word Press allows you to post-date your publications, which means you can write all kinds of blogs ahead of time and set when you want them to be published. It fools the reader into thinking that you’re right there diligently blogging to your heart’s content. The downside: You might set a post for publication that might be irrelevant by the time it hits publication. IE: When you write a post on how to cope with extreme hot weather and it gets published on the coldest, rainiest day of the summer.

4) Along the lines of advance publishing consider a “Best of” post: We all have those posts we think were better than the others. Consider bringing that back to life. Add a brief updated intro and you’re good to go. The downside: Some of your more loyal readers might feel cheated. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve already read this one…”

5) Consider finding a guest blogger: Think about having someone post in your place. Maybe it’s a friend or family member. Maybe it’s someone with similar interests or even their own blog. If you write a cooking blog, for example,  think about all those great chefs you know. Perhaps they’d like to write a post for you. It’s win-win. You get activity on your blog. They get to promote themselves or their business. The downside: you lose a little control of your blog content, unless you can see exactly what they write ahead of time.

Think it over. Decide what to do. And have a great vacation!