Recession-Proof and Winterize Your Blog

Advanced Warning: If you’re tired of the talk about the worldwide economic crisis and downturn in spending, then you should avoid this post.

Many people are currently concerned about whether or not they’ll be able to “weather the storm” and make it out of the recession with a job and money in the bank.  While I don’t want to exaggerate what is happening, many companies are facing double digit year-over-year declines in profits and must accordingly, lay off thousands of people.  It is difficult for people who don’t have alternative sources of income.

However, bloggers have a several prime advantages over other people, even those in “recession-proof” industries, which typically continue to boom despite economic downturns.  In late September, I covered a topic related to ways to save money as a blogger, which becomes even more useful today.  Blogging, through many individuals’ eyes is “entertainment,” one of the most recession-proof industries out there.  Whether you agree or disagree with this statement, there are several ways that you can ensure that your blog will continue to survive despite a “slow down” of spending.

First, We’ll Recession-Proof Your Blog

Depending on the type of blog your run and post frequently to, it’ll be a different scenario for each individual.  For some, you’ll need to take more drastic actions than others, while some have already prepared the ideal blog to counter any declines in traffic or revenue.

Your Philosophy: Before continuing, be sure that you have your goals in mind – whether you want to continue building traffic or steadily building monthly revenue.

• Analyze Trends for Declines or Increases.  Capture the people who are new visitors to your blog.  Although you don’t want to persuade them to do things you wouldn’t want someone “bigger” than you would – such as purchasing scam eBooks for $97 apiece, you want to persuade each and every one of them that you have the best blog and that they should subscribe, comment, or bookmark/share your site with others.  They are valuable to you in the long-term and if you lose them now, you’ll have less people to leverage in the future if you ever have a difficult decision to make.
• Publish Messages that Encourage People to Stay.  In reference to the first tip, I stated that you need to convince your readers that your blog has some importance compared to other blogs.  Don’t look at each post simply as an addition to your blog, but as a landing page, one that may or may not convince your readers to stay.  This great little plugin (recently released) will detect the referring site and help you tailor each page to what your readers are looking for with little work on your part.
• Don’t Let Your Blog Go Stale.  Despite economic conditions, you want to be sure that your blog maintains a consistent update schedule.  If not, you will find your profits, visitors, and readership slipping through your fingers before you have time to save them.  Readers are most attracted to your blog for your daily “ramblings,” not outdated posts or content that resides on the main page for weeks on end.  Simply try to continue providing valuable content – don’t focus on reviews or “junk” content.
• Advertisements Become More Valuable.  Any extra income you draw in through this critical time period can be beneficial, especially if you are laid off and have more time to write on your site/blog.  In some ways, you can charge a little more, as you must compensate for any personal losses through your site (business).  Value each advertiser, even if they are just an individual site.
• Optimize and Track to Increase Conversions.  During financial crises, you will need to track everything.  Make sure that you have established a method of tracking subscriber growth/decline, income, and traffic, or you won’t know what you need to do in order to rebound from any significant declines.  Search high and low for areas you can cut costs in, even if it is just a few pennies on web hosting – it’ll add up.
• Focus on What Works and What’s Free.  There is no better way to build a blog or any business than creating something that people want.  Like previously stated, you should continue creating content, but what if you could eliminate another group from the whole picture – your competitors?  Create a product during the “recession that is better and works more efficiently (such as an application, (e)book, or service) that solves a problem they have.  Even if you use the “free” model, it’ll pay off in the long-term when more people visit your blog.

Now, We’ll Winterize Your Blog

During this time of the year (November through January), people in many parts of the world celebrate the holiday season, meaning that you’ll have to be able to cope with changes on your blog – less traffic, a slow-down in subscribers, and more.

Below are some ways to ensure that each party will continue to grow – content for readers and traffic/income for yourself.

While many of the ideas listed above under the “recession” area above can also be applied to winterizing your blog, there are a few additional items that I’d like to point out.

• Now Is a Good Time to “Optimize” Your Blog.  With WordPress 2.7 due to be released within the next few weeks, it is also a good time to make sure that you are using optimized code and plugins within both the front- and back-ends of your blog system. If you aren’t using WordPress, remove any extra space or unnecessary code within your theme to speed up your site.  Somewhat like spring cleaning, this process can occur nearly any time of the year, as you want to be sure that your site doesn’t take minutes to load.
• Take Advantage of “Less” Traffic.  Without a doubt, some of the people who would normally be visiting your blog each day won’t have that opportunity during the holiday season, as they are visiting and sharing time with friends and family.  However, with a decline in traffic, you can also roll out new features that would normally have to be tested behind the scenes – theme changes, additions to your site and more.
• Write More Content Ahead of Time.  If you are planning a mini vacation, you should keep in mind that you won’t have any new posts published to your blog during this time.  So, to prepare for this, have guest authors write on your blog or write new posts yourself, then set an “advanced” date in order for them to be published while you are away from your computer.

The Relaities

Some people, especially those that have been blogging or publishing/creating content online for quite some time think that their profits and readership don’t take a beating during declines in consumer spending.  While there are some truths in this, a lot of it is false.

For the most part, bloggers work for themselves or blog for a larger company.  Recently, there have been dozens of layoffs, i.e. Six Apart cutting nearly 8% of its full-time employees and decreasing pay and services offered in other areas.  There will be more to come.  Tech companies are weathering the storm on-par or worse than other, more “traditional” companies, although the effects might not be as widespread for a few main reasons:

1. Media industries and larger, multi-billion dollar companies will continue advertising at nearly the same rate as previously.  Most of the revenue won’t be able to trickle down to the smaller publishers, but it will still be there.  Ads will continue running in one of the largest distribution groups – the Internet and this segment will continue to grow year-over-year.
2. Smaller bloggers are characterized as being more able to adapt to changes than those that work at a 9 to 5 job.  For example, if an advertiser doesn’t place another ad on your site, then you are likely to gain a new one the next month.  Otherwise, you can place other advertising products and distribution services, such as AdSense on your site, which will help supplement the income while you wait for an advertiser to place another ad.
3. People who own websites are more likely to know where to get information on how to further optimize their site/design for higher click through rates and better conversions if you are selling or promoting a product.  You don’t have to be stressed out if your rates are cut, as you can diversify your income more than other groups of people.  Change your mindset.  If your main source of income drops, then that means you will be able to use other sources; which could lead to even more income in the long-term.
4. Recessions that occur throughout the whole market – we’re currently going through a fairly significant one now, and we’ve had several that have hit within the past 10+ years – generally help define what companies/businesses will make it and those that won’t.  Following this principle, even if your blog begins losing you money, you’ll want to ensure that it stays open for at least a majority of the downfall to see where things go.  Finding that you can’t keep it open, migrate back to a free service (Blogger, WordPress.com, etc.) and start from the ground up to save money, while still being able to do what you love.
5. Should you currently be working for a blog network that has had to cut costs, begin looking to see what else is out there.  If you don’t have your own blog, now might be the best time to start one.  Web hosts are offering discounts left and right, and there are still a number of opportunities to benefit from.

Conclusion

While you may be personally stressed out about the current situation, you shouldn’t reflect that onto your blog readers unless you run a personal blog and are willing to share this.  Not everyone will be affected by these dramatic changes across the board.  Google, for one, is still reporting record profits, and will continue to do so as more people flock to the Internet to add a side income during hard times.  It isn’t as though the AdSense team has limited its publishers to a select few as other companies are doing online.

The most important thing to remember is to focus on what can draw in the most rewards – whether traffic or subscribers – and continue doing that.  Blogging can’t be brought down along with all the other companies that have been around for more than a hundred years.  There is too much to risk – the communities that have formed over the years and the people who have made it all possible.