Should You Inform Readers About Blog Construction

Years ago when I created my first website it was vogue to have banners or animated graphics to tell visitors when your website was under construction.  Basically what this meant is you were working on the website so some things might not work as expected or content that was there might not be there now.  While the intentions of these warnings were good what ended up happening is they were overused.  In fact occasionally a website can still be found with the ubiquitous under construction warning.  Some websites honestly were always under construction.  The warnings never came off them!

Blogs by their very nature are always under construction.   As a blogger I know this so really don't like coming across a blog with a huge banner announcing it is under construction.  This raises the question whether you should inform your readers about blog construction.  The answer to this from my perspective is yes and no.  Here's why:

• no - A post or multiple posts telling your readers that you are do this or that with your blog ads no actual content to your blog.  I think most blog readers have become accustomed to seeing minor changes on the blogs they read on a fairly regular basis.  Aside of those visible changes there is a lot of tweaking and optimization that I do on my blogs behind the scenes.  The reader may notice my blogs load faster because of the changes but other than that nothing really is a visible noticeable change.  In addition to these on going changes I usually do a bit of decorating for the Christmas season so my readers expect this meaning there's really no reason for me to say I making those changes.  My rule of thumb is as long as the changes are not disruptive to the reader I don't feel there is any reason to inform the readers about what I'm doing.  
• yes - From time to time I will do a complete overhaul of my blogs that includes a new custom made theme with custom made graphics.  This means elements are added and tested one at a time so especially when first starting my blogs can look a tad odd.  I have found that this can be disruptive for my readers so I will make a temporary post to let them know they will more than likely see a few odd things going and to not worry it's just me doing a larger update.  Once the update is completed, I replace the temporary construction notice with a post thanking my readers for their patience during the upgrades.  I usually leave the thank-you notice up for a couple of hours then I take it down.

Garden Gnome
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