Easily Turn Your Site Downtime Into Profitable Business In With These 3 Simple Steps

Imagine the following, if you will.

Being a smart, savvy blogger, you’ve already installed CommentLuv on your site.

You’ve been spending weeks and months and perhaps years in solidly building up your reputation as THE go-to person in your treasured niche.

And then you realize that like Pokemon
(Oddish, to be precise, ’cause he’s a happenin’ dude)
…it’s time to evolve.

You search about for the very best web designer/copywriter you can both uncover and afford!

My gosh, the days and weeks that follow – it’s intoxicating.

You receive brilliant ideas regarding your new look and feel.

You swoon with delight at the freshly made copywriting that compels clients and readers alike to bash down your virtual door.

And then that magic day happens – it’s time to activate your brand new look and feel!

But then.

Then.

THEN!!!.

Disaster strikes with the ginormous force of microwaving a 3 gallon aluminum cup of coffee in the microwave.

Your site…it has a (gasp!) maintenance notice!

Do you grasp the *utter horror* of that stark truth? Do you understand within the very fibres of your what that means??????

It means that people visit and they go:

“Jeepers! The site ain’t up! Next!”

And they sadly surf off to someplace new, forgetting about the sorry state of your site within seconds.

All together now….WAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

But you know….it doesn’t have to be that way.

And I sure know that for a plain fact, because I experienced the above….yesterday.

See, it was a dark and stormy night…no, really, it wasn’t, instead it was a pitch black morning when no mooses were abroad and I realized:

“Oh gee that’s nice. My site is in maintenance mode!
Isn’t that special! The new look/feel will soon go up!”

And then I realized, hmmm.

All that traffic coming by – I’m losing it!

• I had no optin to gather addresses for folks to be
  notified when the site went live.
• I had no compelling copy to amaze and intrigue
  visitors so they’d tell their friends about it.

For a business woman like myself, this was unacceptable indeed!

Something had to be done.

But what?

During the 3 minutes I had between this realization and having to take the kids to school and run the mooses and brew my 46th cup of coffee…what *could* I do?

And then it hit me with astonishing grace.

I could….buy the Internet and stop ALL traffic!

Alas, as I couldn’t find its listing on eBay, that idea died a quick and painful death.

But then brazen intelligence *did* emerge and suffused
my very being with the following brilliant realization.

Just because my site is down…it doesn’t mean my Facebook Fan Page is down!

In other words, this was a fantastic opportunity to drive quality traffic to my Unleashed Inner Expert page.

So! I quickly crafted up the compelling image you see above, and made that my maintenance picture. Then I made sure to deftly hyperlink it to my Facebook Fan page.

But I wasn’t done yet!!

Oh no, oh no!

I needed to devise some sort of contest so people would be willing to share this exciting event.

And what better contest is there than to simply guess what my new theme would be?

Which brings me to the point of this post…you.

The above story really did happen to me yesterday…and in hindsight, I realize that I truly should have thought about the implications of being in maintenance mode….. ahead of time.

And I figure, I’m probably not the only one guilty of such short-sightedness.

Hence this guest post.

At some time in your blogging career, the probability that you’ll revamp your entire site is greater than the probability Facebook will eat the universe as we know it.

So when you do embark on that journey, follow these three simple steps to make the most of your new transition.

Step 1.) Think to where you want to direct traffic during your down time.

Do you have:

• A Facebook Fan page?
• A LinkedIn profile?
• An optin on another site?
• An affiliate product?

In other words, where else can you direct this traffic that will do you the most good?

Step 2.) Devise a contest to make it worth people’s while to tell their friends about you.

In my case, I used my Facebook Fan Page as part of a ”Guess my theme!” contest. The winners will receive free copies of my products. If you don’t have any products to offer, can you offer free consulting instead?

Step 3.) Create a useful maintenance mode image, and hyperlink it directly to your destination site

I linked my maintenance mode image directly to my Facebook Fan Page, *and* also created a new fan-only tab about the contest to boot.

NOTE! You can use the Custom Coming Soon
plugin to also gather email addresses directly on your site.

Thus…

When people visit my non-operational site, they still have someplace to explore instead….someplace that benefits me.

And that can be described as only a Very Good Thing Indeed!

Thus….learn from my mistake.

Revamping your site – it’s a brilliant move!

But make sure to have someplace else you can send your visitors. Your bottom line will thank you muchly in the end!

Enjoy!

Grow strong,

Barbara Ling

About The Author: Barbara Ling is a 13+ year veteran Internet marketer and entrepreneur who specializes in both making profitable success simple, and quickly turning on a dime no
matter what opportunities for massive amounts of grey hairs emerge. Visit her site at Barbara Ling.com.

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