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Shuttering a blog

Not this one!  But recently, as part of an effort to simplify my life, I’ve shuttered a couple of blogs I had been running for a while.  Here’s my list of best practices to do so:

  • Forgive yourself.  Running a blog is a lot of work, so if you don’t have time to do it adequately, it’s better to admit it than to do a poor job.
  • Try to find someone else who is interested.  If you’ve built up a following (you know how many visits you’re getting a day, right) and want to continue to see whatever topic you are blogging about more fully explored, you may be able to find someone else.  If you do, make sure to add them as a contributor, and discuss where they see things going from there–do they want to fully take over the blog, just write the occasional post, or what?
  • Announce the hibernation on the blog.  Feel free to phrase is as a long pause, or a hibernation, or whatever, but make sure you tell your readers.
  • Leave the content up for as long as you can.  Consider moving it to a different server if you need to consolidate, but if you’ve put up useful posts, people will continue to visit via search engines.
  • Leave up your contact info as well.  I’ve had several emails about my shuttered blog, and they’ve actually spiked my interest to start writing again.
  • Shut down your CTAs; for instance, I had a newsletter signup on one blog.  To me, it’s not fair to ask people to give their email address if I’m never going to send them useful content.  Along with the previous two suggestions, this is really about being respectful of your readers.

Do you have any tips for shutting down a blog in a graceful manner?  Here’s an interesting post on the topic, but written from the perspective of a more professional blogger.

Stats mix is out of beta

Statsmix, a cool dashboard builder which I previously reviewed,  is out of beta, according to an email I just received, and an announcement on their blog.

They have have added info about pricing on their site.

I took a brief look at the new release and it seems to address the pricing issue, but not the integration issue.  Still, if I were running a business and needed some custom reporting measured over time, StatsMix would merit a serious evaluation.