I am a bit confused.
Most of my readers say my blog looks A-OK. Loading in 2 seconds. Rendering perfectly.
A few of my readers note my blog renders poorly – not reading HTML tags – and takes minutes to load if it loads at all.
What gives?
I have no idea.
Right now we’re talking a 9 to 1 ratio of readers with no issues and readers with issues with Blogging From Paradise.
The select few issue readers have not been able to view a proper version of my site for days.
I suspect the issue has something to do with increased blog traffic and/or CDN problems. But we will see.
I am on it with my web developer but want to share 5 key lessons bloggers can learn from site issues.
1: Surrender
I have no idea what to do on the backend because I am not skilled tech-wise. I don’t do CDN or coding or theme stuff.
Although I did some trouble shooting I surrender the nuts and bolts to my developer and readership suggestions.
Surrender site issues. Even as you solve, let go the worry, fear and anxiety about your site either being down or loading weirdly.
If you cannot control something just work toward a solution and know the issue gets resolved eventually.
Ask your blogger friend network for suggestions while your developer works on the issue. But focus your energies on doing something helpful versus worrying about your blog all day long.
2: Believe in You
My friend Alonzo Pichardo endlessly stresses; believe in yourself. Trust in yourself.
I vibe with him because believing in me – and not my site or any influence outside of me – helps me calmly, confidently and clearly address the issue.
Although I feel clear on my site I do not believe my blog is the source of my success. My success sprouts from within, originating in something bigger than me.
Since I believe in me more than anything outside of me, when stuff outside of me appears to be a problem, or appears to be having issues, I am not disturbed.
Sure you may stress for a few seconds when your readers start emailing you with site issues – as I did for a minute yesterday – because you are human but believe in you over anybody or anything outside of you. This helps you see that your success grows from within, not without, and you won’t flip out when your blog has issues.
3: Create Outside of Your Own Real Estate
Have you visited my Amazon Author Page?
Stop by, do some shopping and treat yourself to a selection of my 126 eBooks.
Yesterday a few readers noted my site had issues. I immediately did 2 things; troubleshoot and promote my offsite eBooks and products through videos and articles on 3rd party sites.
I promoted some eBooks on Facebook. No Blogging From Paradise involved, so no site issues.
I wrote a few guest posts and articles on Medium, linking to my eBooks there. No Blogging From Paradise involved, so no site issues.
Create generously outside of your own real estate. Do not get attached to your blog as a critical point in your sales funnel. Be abundant. Ease your suffering when your site is down.
Most bloggers form a heavy, fear-based attachment to their blog and stake 100% of their online success to one site which is foolish and online suicide. Spread the wealth. Share wisdom across multiple channels. When one site or network has issues – namely your blog – your backup sites will serve you well.
Why do you think this is my 499th guest post on Blogging Tips? 🙂
4: Buy Reliable Web Hosting
I’ve had virtually zero issues with my web host over the past 4 years.
Even if the hosting company cannot handle my blog traffic now – which could be the issue – this is no fault of their’s because they’ve done a smash of job handling an increasing volume of BFP traffic over the past year, specifically. If this is the case I simply upgrade my hosting to a premium package of theirs. No big deal.
Purchasing good hosting helps you avoid so many site problems suffered by bloggers who buy cheap, low quality hosting. If your site does have issues you just email support and get a quick answer, as was the case for me yesterday.
If you need to shop around for solid web hosting read this excellent resource at WHSR:
Web Hosting Reviews – The Best Web Hosting List 2018
5: Do What You Can Do
Even though I surrendered doing heavy weight tech stuff I did stay up until 2 AM last night deleting hundreds of images from my media library. I had trashed hundreds of blog posts from my blog 2 years ago but never deleted the associated images from my library.
I also converted all heavy video embeds to links.
I have enough knowledge to know that deleting unused images places less of a load on my blog as does deleting heavy video embeds and replacing with links. So I went that route and my blog is already loading more quickly on my end.
Do what you can do. Just a little bit of research usually reveals that you can help out a wee bit or even a lot more than you initially thought.
Your Turn
How do you handle site issues with your blog?