As morbid as it sounds, have you ever wondered what will happen to your blog when you expire from the face of this earth? This post was prompted by a regular guest blogger on someone else’s blog who suddenly disappeared from the blogging world. Mails to him were also unanswered, and his popular SEO blog was abandoned and then deleted when the domain expired.

While I won’t be drawn into any speculation as to whether this blogger had suddenly passed on, this incident just reminds us of how short life can be and how death can be both swift and sudden. But in our online community, it just begs the question “What will happen to our blogs when we die?”

There are just 2 ways how our blog will end up when we pass away.

1. The Unprepared Blogger – Your Blog Dies Too

The chance of this happening outweighs more than the second possibility that I will discuss next. Assuming that you don’t have a family of bloggers or Internet Marketers who have the same interest or passion as you, you would never have thought about passing the legacy to your children or wife that’s for sure. The inevitable comes – your blog dies along with you.

Personally I feel that you would have more incentive to make such “takeover” preparations only if you have a glowing business and consistently earn a relatively substantial online income.

2. The Prepared Blogger – Your Blog Lives On

These are the things you would have taken care of:

1. You would discuss with your partners if they are willing to take over the running of your blog should you suddenly pass on. After all, they already have a vested interest in your blog and would appreciate such discussions.

2. There is a lot of information known only to you that makes releasing it to someone else essential in continuing your business. Start writing down all the important login IDs and passwords (e.g. PayPal, affiliate programs, etc.) and give this to your wife or most trusted partner. The most important account should be your PayPal account since your money is kept here. Write down a simple note listing the steps needed to remit back the money to your family. If you don’t already have a joint bank account with your spouse or loved ones to receive the money, this is probably a good time to open one.

3. You may prefer to sell your blog especially if your family has no knowledge of your business or the desire to learn to takeover the operations. Inform your most trusted partner to initiate the blog sales process in the event of your death.

4. Over the years you would have built lots of relationship with other bloggers, customers and prospects. You would want to at least write a short page advising them of your departure and have someone publish it on your blog.

Just like you would create a will in the offline world so that you know all your assets will be appropriately distributed to your family when you are gone, there isn’t an online will to do this. However Legacy Locker offers a service that you might want to consider as it passes on any important digital property to your family members or partners including application logins like PayPal, email accounts, Facebook, etc.