Did you do anything for Halloween on your blog? I know that Halloween isn’t celebrated in every country – but it is an opportunity for bloggers who want to make the most of seasonal trends in web usage.
So lets showcase what everyone did on their blogs this Halloween. I’m sure there are some creative examples worth highlighting.
I’ll start us off – at DPS I updated my previously posted Halloween Photography Tips post (with new pictures and information) and put it back on the front page of the blog (I did this last week to give it some lead time). The result was pretty good with quite a few new links from different sites and a marked increase in traffic as a result.
This is actually the third year in a row that I’ve updated this post and given it some front page attention. The great thing about reusing it is that it’s grown in it’s search engine rankings each year.
Now it’s your turn – if you did something special (whether it be design wise, adding new specially written content etc) tell us about what you did and what results it had in comments below.
We put up a Happy Halloween picture…
http://blog.bluefur.com/2007/10/31/happy-halloween/
I posted the first holiday gift guide of the season! Christmas advertising season starts right after Halloween so I thought I would be a good idea to post something that’s likely to get hits for the next 2 months. (I also posted a vampire pic to cover all my bases).
I wrote a post (a few days before Halloween) called “Halloween Baby Names, Hollywood-Style – Freddy, Jason, Carrie, Regan.” No results to speak of so far, but I hope my readers appreciated it. :)
We posted how we carved our pumpkin with videos and pictures (Perforando la calabaza) and today we posted some photos on how the kids went dressed to school. Posts were really welcomed, readers enjoyed them, they commented and linked back. I’ve also noticed they fired some similar ideas at other blogs.
I said I would give $9 via paypal to a random commentor that left a comment naming one thing that scares them. Unfortunately, I only a couple of comments:(
Being an anti-scam site, I wrote a post which outlined the history of Halloween and then asked if the modern equivalent is nothing more than a retail scam?
For Halloween I’ve started a Winter Bazaar where other bloggers can post seasonal activities, games, crafts and ideas related to the holidays. So far a lot of great ideas for Halloween have come in. Here’s the first week’s edition:
http://scribbit.blogspot.com/2007/10/ghost-cake-with-flaming-eyes.html
Uh…
nothing.
I posted a radio drama version of The Raven by E A Poe I’d produced and directed two years ago.
http://emonome.com/archives/832
I posted several weeks about “You might be a gardening geek if” and listed signs and symptoms of those of us who are obsessed with gardening. For Halloween, I posted a special Halloween edition of more signs and symptoms of being a gardening geek. These ‘gardening geek’ posts result in some nice comments from like-minded gardeners.
Shamefully, I admit I didn’t get a post up in time for it. I was up in the East turret, about to write one, but the villagers showed up with those darned torches and by the time I got rid of them, Halloween was already over in most parts of the world.
But earlier in the week I DID throw on a holiday banner, using my limited Photoshop skills. It’s really scary, if you’re two years old – otherwise it’s just lame.
I published four posts – three of them on the Top 10 adult, pet, and children’s costumes that are likely to be purchased and one post on other Halloween facts that I wasn’t aware of previously – 10 Halloween Facts That May Scare You.
We were a little late to apply any designs to the blog in time for Halloween. So we didn’t.
But we did publish a Halloween flavored sarcastic article.
http://www.domtan.com/ways-to-scare-visitors-on-halloween
My WordPress thing was already very Halloween-ish to begin with, with all the orange and dark gray (although not exactly black) so I didn’t really work on the graphics much. My video podcast this week is entitled The Truth Behind Halloween though. If ghosts wanting candy doesn’t make any sense to you, you should watch to find out who’s really behind trick or treating!
I hadn’t planned a Halloween post, but then a friend brought me a cat-o-lantern: http://www.sbpoet.com/2007/10/seasonal-scary-.html
So I posted that, with links to previous cat-o-ween posts.
Nothing ‘pro’ about any of it.
I hadn’t planned a Halloween post, but then a friend brought me a cat-o-lantern: http://www.sbpoet.com/2007/10/cat-o-lantern.html
So I posted that, with links to previous cat-o-ween posts.
Nothing ‘pro’ about any of it.
Ooops, sorry — wrong link (though related) in first comment, which I thought I had caught in time.
I made an Apple pumpkin: http://www.mactips.org/archives/2007/10/31/happy-halloween-from-mactips/
I didn’t get any comments on the site, but Trick-or-Treaters loved it. I wasn’t getting comments by little kids left and right.
I had no idea that many kids knew about Apple, I guess we can thank the iPod for that.
I’ve been posting Halloween material for a few days and have a couple of other items coming up. The main piece is “100 Things About Me #118: Candy Camera,” about my first store-bought trick-or-treat costume at age 3 with snapshots.
http://mikedurrett.blogspot.com/2007/10/100-things-about-me-118.html
Also, several Separated at Birth sight gags.
http://mikedurrett.blogspot.com/2007/10/separated-at-birth-wolf-man-and.html
http://mikedurrett.blogspot.com/2007/10/separated-at-birth-nosferatu-and.html
http://mikedurrett.blogspot.com/2007/10/separated-at-birth-frankensteins.html
http://mikedurrett.blogspot.com/2007/11/separated-at-birth-frankensteins.html
I explained why I now think every adult should dress up for this festive day and related it to why I blog. With a really cool picture to go with it.
http://www.teapartygirl.com/did-you-dress-up
Although I have one site devoted to haunted lighthouses (it’s been busy this week), my lighthouse news one doesn’t usually talk about haunted beacons, so I posted “The Ghost of Seguin Island” for Halloween. Complete with photo.
http://lighthouse-news.com/index.php/2007/10/31/the-ghost-of-seguin-island/
I held a contest to promote “Memory Month” on my blog. For the month of November I’ll be writing a series of articles on memory training techniques. The winner was announced on Halloween:
http://wondr.net/2007/10/31/memory-month-contest-winner/
I found the contest approach to be pretty successful at bringing some additional readers to my new blog.
I have a wine blog, so I posted a halloween party wine suggestion. Vampire Merlot!
I wrote a piece on how to bring “ghost” email addresses back from the dead. In other words, how to get people re-interested in what you send them.
I opened a new blog :)
One of my sites uses blogging technology to maintain a resource site for English language learners and I put up a cool video called “Zombies in Plain English” by commoncraft.
Check it out – it’s brilliant
http://cataspanglish.blogspot.com/2007/10/cautionary-tale-for-halloween.html
Not a damn thing!
Games for Halloween
http://jergames.blogspot.com/2007/10/games-for-halloween.html
Yehuda
I added some pumpkins to my header, since Halloween isn’t such a big item here in the Netherlands, I didn’t make a posting about it.
You can see my header, for the rest of this morning, after that I will remove it; http://www.coenjacobs.net .
If figures that I just took down all the Halloween stuff right before I read this post. I didn’t even think of taking a snapshot of the pages for prosperity.
I added a devilish pumpkin photo from flickr to the sidebar…it’s still there. Very good it is too!
db
I posted an article on the history of Halloween and All Saints (the latter being celebrated in Portugal) plus offered 13 spooky words in Portuguese :-)
On Halloween, I posted an essay about the 1941 film “The Wolf Man.” The day before it was “Frankenstein” (1931) and the day before that, it was “Dracula” (1931). Now it’s November 1st, and all the monsters have been killed with a stake in the heart, clubbed with a silver cane, or torched by a mob of angry villagers. Maybe we can have a little peace and quiet now.
Yesterday I put up pictures of the front and back of the little Halloween pumpkin that I carved:
http://www.thehotiron.com/index.php/site/comments/front_and_back_photos_of_my_halloween_pumpkin/
It timed well with Wordless Wednesday, which I participate in every week.
mp/m
I actually did two posts … one was “two things I love best about Halloween”, encouraging comment discussion.
The second was an un-planned, spontaneous post of a hilarious (some would say untasteful) picture I’d seen floating around the emails of a scarecrow shooting a “moon”.
See the posts at:
http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2007/10/31/beautiful-halloween-moon-you-gotta-see/
http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2007/10/31/my-favorite-halloween-things/
I hosted my Third Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest (being an artist and all, it sparks much creativity!) – and announced the winner at 9pm CST on Halloween.
The entries:
http://intricateart.com/blog/2007-pumpkin-carving-submissions/#entries
The blog interaction:
http://intricateart.com/blog/category/pumpkin-carving-contest/
The winner receives a $25 Amazon gift certificate and an autographed copy of WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. :)
I posted on having a green Halloween on Suite101’s Environmentalism blog, which included links out to where to buy recycled products and non-candy item ideas. A few article links for creative Halloween costumes were thrown in for good measure.http://environmentalism.suite101.com/blog.cfm/green_halloween
Then on Globally Green Living I did a similar post but also mentioned making your own makeup and buying an organic pumpkin and using soy or beeswax candles for them instead of paraffin. http://www.globallygreenliving.com/go-green-this-halloween/
On Parenting Under the Stars I just blogged about my kids and how they didn’t want me around, how we weren’t giving out candy this year etc. http://www.parentingunderthestars.com/halloween-frenzy/
As for the results, lots of traffic on Suite101 but not so much on the other two blogs since I just started them.
I posted our family’s first Halloween adventure complete with pictures of our “Halloweiners”. Trick or Treating with quadruplets is a memory we will not soon forget. I was pleased with our post and the humor involved….check it out!
Rachel did this awesome halloween illustration for the blog.
I wrote a post comparing entrepreneurs with children at Halloween!
http://www.AfterTheLaunch.com/
We did a whole month of Halloween-themed posts. You can view all of them here:
http://www.zombiereportingcenter.com/category/zrc/halloween/
We did two How-To video posts on making some Halloween treats, Zombie movie reviews every friday, Halloween Candy reviews… It was a lot of fun but fizzled out towards the last week of October as we had just run out of steam and it was a LOT of work. Next year we’ll try again and make sure that we have a jump on it by preparing posts ahead of time in August/September.
Hi Darren,
I continued my series mocking Islamic Rage Boy by placing him in several scenes from horror movies:
http://britandgrit.com/?p=1709
the Grit
Also, on my other blog, New England Travels, I posted a photo and article on the Samantha statue from the TV show “Bewitched,” located in Salem, Massachusetts: http://newenglandtravels.blogspot.com/2007/10/salems-samantha-statue.html.
I wrote a post that combines my love of scary movies with blogging:
http://www.best-earning-strategies.com/fun-stuff/turning-scary-movies-into-scary-blogs
I wrote about How to have an allergy-free Halloween
I launched the dang thing.
http://www.executedtoday.com/2007/10/31/1589-peter-stubbe-sybil-stubbe-and-katharina-trump/
Grisly, but seasonally appropriate, content. For a daily chronicle of executions, it’s hard to do better than a werewolf on Halloween.
One of the main reasons I added such a variety of channels to my site was to balance traffic when I knew my own traffic would be down – like during late summer and the holidays.
October proved it was a smart move because my kids activities channel went gangbusters, especially with the search engines. As an example, in all of 2007 I had gotten less than 1500 visits from Yahoo search. In the last two days of October we had 164 visits from Yahoo, nearly all of them to the kids channel! Woo Hoo! :)
I actually posted something a couple of weeks ago, detailing my Halloween costuming plans. I talked of how much fun costuming is, as it lets us try on alternate personae, and used that as a segue into a review of the Sweet Potato Queens books, in which a group of women have basically adopted permanent queenly personae.
As a bonus, I posted a photo of me dressed up in my own queenly garb as a young’un:
http://selfhelpme.wordpress.com/2007/10/17/how-to-be-queenfor-a-lifetime/
I did a couple of short posts relating to Halloween on mine.
Go to The Franchise King Blog!
I brought back a post from this time last year about the Wayback Machine and updated it a bit –
Does Your Domain Have Skeletons in its Closet?