Hmm… Lots of thinking to do. I definitely want to do it right, and make it part of my daily routine to post on these sites, but nothing can be decided until I start my new job.

I’m currently designing a custom CMS solution to handle it. I’m going to approach it as if it is a whole new ballgame. I’m gonna welcome everyone back if they are still there, and I am going to begin with some home-run swings.

If it really was such a big mess in the past though, might be better to just start with a clean slate.

If you are planning a slow return, why not just be subtle about it?

At the time, I thought the close would be permanent (I even went so far as to leave a goodbye notice on the blog), but circumstances changed and I decided I wanted to blog about Russia again. So, in December 2006, after a hiatus of exactly 12 months, I kicked off again as if nothing had ever happened.

I carried on with a similar pattern to before – about 5 posts per week – and the only real link-bait I carried out was to run a series of interviews of other bloggers in the field. I did email a few bloggers to remind them I was back, but most still had me in their RSS, and the word spread pretty quickly.

During the 1 year break, traffic dropped quite sharply (from around 250 uniques per day to around 50). I’m sure RSS also dropped, but I’m not sure how accurate feedburner stats are for measuring the number of people subscribing to non-active blogs. However, traffic picked up again very quickly – both direct traffic and search engine traffic – and was up to previous traffic levels within a few months.

At the time I relaunched, I knew pretty much nothing about SEO or SEM – I’m sure if I had, the recovery would have been even quicker. But I’m convinced that the increase in visitor numbers in the first few months was significantly higher than I would have achieved had I launched a brand new blog in the niche

(BTW – I’m on Hive as ’siberian’. Happy to chat about it, just send me a PM).

I have a few blogs that are almost dead right now, but their structure allows me to update them again whenever I want and without having to apologise to my readers. However, I also have some “frozen” websites and blogs whose readers are certainly waiting for a good explanation — and I think they do deserve one. So, when I resurrect those projects, I won’t act as if nothing has happened.

What I mean is: there doesn’t seem to be a standardised way to deal with this situation. You should analyse the blogs’ niches and typical audience and act accordingly. Unless you feel that you must restart those blogs ASAP in order to keep yourself motivated. If you feel that the minimal delay could make you lose your enthusiasm, then just start posting again and save your apologies and explanations only for readers who specifically ask for them.

Good luck!

Thanks

“Eighty percent of success is showing up. ”
Woody Allen

“And the remaining twenty percent is being the last one to quit.”
Anon