What’s the first thing to check when your blog goes weird?
© Balazs H, Weird Eyes, via Flickr
There is nothing more distressing than when your blog goes weird.
Any non-techie person dreads their blog going wrong. Sometimes it can feel like it's the end of the world!
I certainly go all clammy, my throat dries up, and I can feel my temperature rising.
But before you get in a real tizz and start screaming down the phone at your web designer, it's best to do this simple task first.
Do you relate to this?
Here's a cry for help I came across recently:
Poor thing! Everything is going haywire. She really needs to know what she can easily do when her blog goes weird.
Luckily I had experienced something similar before.
I was trying to redo the customisation of my theme, and all I got was a blank page. After scratching my head and worrying a bit, I asked the theme website's forum what I needed to do.
The answer was swift and simple, just like this one:
Of course!
And yet, for some non-techie bloggers this is neither obvious or simple.
It is, in fact, a bit of a minefield. Updating is an area they probably hadn't thought much about. It means going into the bowels of their blog and tentatively looking at the innards.
Scary!
But actually it's not that difficult. And to prove it, I have written this separate post to explain what you need to do to update your blog, in my usual easy to understand, everyday English.
Because updating is something you regularly need to do, to stop you noticing the next time your blog goes weird.
Anyhow, my friend girded her loins and took the plunge:
Every non-techie blogger needs reassurance. This is something that many techie people don't appreciate, because they do this sort of thing all the time!
But I am very happy to make all the right noises if it gives my blogging friends all the encouragement they need.
A kind of virtual hand-holding, if you like.
And after what seemed like an age, I finally got this little happy message:
And she probably did.
Here's Julia with the last word:
So glad everything turned out alright in the end.
And now you know the first thing you should do when your blog goes weird.
Let's hope you have the same happy ending. And if you don't, well – that's when you need to call your web designer.
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