A few weeks ago I encouraged readers to get their blog ready for Christmas.
I’d be interested to hear how people have gone with it.
Have you done anything different on your blog this holiday season? Perhaps it’s been posts you’ve written, design elements, getting your ads and affiliate programs optimized – or something else.
How have these efforts converted for you?
Let me give you an example of my own:
Earlier in the week I posted 9 Fun Digital Photography Christmas Gifts. I’d previously written some other Christmas posts but this one was more aimed at the last minute shopper. It was a list of 9 products – all from Amazon.
My aim with the post was to make it a little fun and ‘light’ by highlighting smaller and more interesting products than high end and expensive digital cameras (I’d done the more expensive products in a recent post on popular digital cameras).
The conversion of the post has been quite good with quite a few items in the list being purchased and also the traffic that it directed into Amazon resulting in lots of other purchases (remember it’s all about getting readers in the door with Amazon).
I also prominently promoted this post in my weekly newsletter – this drove quite a bit of traffic to it in the last 24 hours – hopefully this will convert in the next Amazon report.
The other surprising element is that the post has done increasingly well with StumbleUpon. Only a few readers have stumbled it so far but the traffic from SU has been quite good so far. I was surprised at this because it’s not a ‘tips’ post – but perhaps the slightly ‘wacky’ products featured have worked.
That’s one example of what I’ve done in the last week or so. What have you been up to?
We gave our blog a christmasy feel make-over.
I have been preparing my blog for the gifts I will receive myself. My affiliate linking is going up, and I’ve added a few new widgets! I’m really excited because I think this holiday season will really allow my blog to explode!
Justin Dupre
http://www.moneyandblog.com
I kind of missed the Christmas boat as far as getting affiliate links set up. But I’ll be ready next year. I always do a holiday post though. I’ve already done mine. So it’s buried a little but I’ll bring it back on Christmas eve.
I created a gift card guide for cycling and outdoor stores. I’m giving 2 gift cards away this week. 1 for people linking to my post for the giveaway and 1 for people that give me feedback on the cycling and outdoor gear search on my site.
Unfortunately I’ve been too busy with Christmas actvities to really promote it. I also got it put up a few days later than planned.
I’ve got a personal video message all ready to go for tomorrow (sat) and I rarely do that. i’m trying to be more personable on my site.. I hope this will help.
I gave myself a new theme!
does that count? :-P
I do plan on scheduling a “Merry Christmas!” post on Christmas day.
But I am offering a Free Custom WordPress Theme contest.
Gonna give away a free custom design for some lucky blog – the deadline is Christmas day.
so that’s what I’m doing.
On wordhugger.com and rsshugger.com I added christmas hats to my logos. =)
Well on the new blog nothing yet because it doesn’t exist yet, but I wrote an article as a guestblogger about Kiva.org. And posted a cheesy video; a christmascarol sung by the blogstaff recorded the year before. They forgot I had it ^^.
edit : christmas carol
As our blog is linked to our podcasts for advanced learners of Spanish, we’ve been doing a whole series on festive traditions, food & customs – and if you’ve never seen the catalan Christmas “shitter” then check it out here http://urltea.com/2crg
All I’ve done is post some Christmasy images to go with some of my posts. Then for the upcoming four days, I’m posting some vintage Christmas images for those who do happen to drop into my blog. I’m not quite to the point of being ready to do any sort of seasonal special on my sites.
I took your advice:
I’ve done my Champagne post:
http://www.thirdcoastwine.com/2007/12/champagne-for-holidays.html
My Christmas Post:
http://www.thirdcoastwine.com/2007/12/christmas-dinner.html
My Snow Post:
http://www.thirdcoastwine.com/2007/12/let-it-snow.html
And I’m posting my New Years Post this week to get ready for new years.
I derided the holiday as a pagan festival re-imagined as a commercial love-fest.
Just kidding. I’m Jewish, didn’t mention it in my blog.
Besides, my blog’s tied in too much to the entertainment industry which typically shuts down mid-December and this year is further slowed by the strike. When it slows down like this I typically write about what to do when it’s slow. But this time of the year it’s best to just get out of town or hang with your family.
I posted a Holiday Video starring YOU and Shoemoney..and a few other bloggers :-)
I put up a Santa hat on my header image and played around with some Christmas lights at the top.
Haven’t done anything, because my blog isen’t launched yet.
I actually timed the launch of my new blog, http://www.GearPipe.com, with Cyber Monday. This site is a “deals and discounts” blog for musical instruments, so the affiliate programs I had joined (Guitar Center, Musicians Friend, etc) were already perfect for the holiday season. Since they set up special sections on their websites for great gift products, I provided links specifically to those pages.
Finally, I also tried to sprinkle season-appropriate keywords in, as much as possible. I’ve seen that quite a few visitors have come to by blog via “stocking stuffers for musicians” or “gifts for musicians.” After about a month, I’ve seen pretty good traffic and some decent affiliate commissions…looking forward to ’08!
I’ve missed the boat this Christmas. I should have been more organized as it was the perfect opportunity to do a top buys kinda thing. My blogs relatively new so I’ve been focused on ‘watering’ and trying to convince people in my industry participate.
http://www.imelda.com.au
Besides putting a link to the amazon store of mine featuring lighthouses, I offered a full size printable Lighthouse Christmas card. It was specially made for me a couple years ago, and I enjoyed it so much I thought I’d share it with other lighthouse lovers. I had it as a “sticky” post for a couple weeks, but now, so close to the holiday, I just have an image and a link to it from the sidebar. People searching for printable cards come in from Google anyway. And my regular readers have already seen and downloaded it.
It’s actually brought in quite a bit of traffic, although I don’t know how many come back, or have subscribed.
I may or may not do a special Christmas post. Maybe the one about the terrorizing geese at Turkey Point Lighthouse.
I did a top 5 pick for my favorite geek Christmas gifts.
http://completegeek.net/?p=215
I had started to put together a top ten gift list for bloggers but changed my mind. It struck me that kind of post doesn’t really fit in with my image and brand. I was concerned I would look a little like a sellout. Not what I want to do with Remarkablogger.
I will take advantage of the holidays to finish my new theme and ebook, in order to have both of them ready for the new year.
I haven’t done too much to make my blog more christmasy. All I’ve done (so far) is change the color of the post titles and sidebar titles to red, so all the links and titles will be green and red. I’m not a designer at all, so I couldn’t give it a complete makeover. I plan on blogging about great gifts sometime this weekend :)
I put together some gift ideas in my Amazon shop and plan to do a Christmas theme….I need to work on that before I can go live with it….that’s the plan. :)
I’ve written a series of 8 Christmas posts including how to avoid overeating, how to plan your menu, how to avoid stress, and some tips for surviving the Christmas period if you’re vegetarian.
However, I’ve noticed traffic has been pretty slow.
Mine is a relatively new blog, so I haven’t done anything special.
Since I really don’t celebrate Christmas, I haven’t done anything. However, the month of December is my blog’s birthday month, so I’ll be having a fun contest coming up with a really cool prize!
I just started as well and haven’t done anything special but that will change next year. I am going to handle my blog as a business which means provide value and change with the seasons and holidays. Yes, I know I am far from a quality blog at this moment but have confidence.
I just have a difficult time understand the technical code behind my wordpress theme to make changes on my site :-(
If somebody knows a good website that explains the ins and outs in an understandable way, please shoot me a link….
At BCS Frenzy, I wrote Three Last-Minute Christmas Gifts for that College Football Fan in your Life”.
At The Millionaire Blogger, I wrote Saving Money Around the Holidays
I think holiday topics are a great way to spread a little Christmas cheer…and drive some traffic with info that’s relevant to readers!
Because my blog is pretty new I just decided to ad a post with a nice holiday pic. I did update my whole website though so hopefully that counts towards getting more traffic and customers. :}
Darren,
I did a similar post as you highlighting some “unique” Christmas gifts. Be a unique gift giver this year…
Seeing as how my blog is all of one week old, and I’ve had all of maybe 15 different people visit the site, I’m not really going to do anything except maybe pop in on Christmas day and say, “Hey. Merry Christmas.” and then go back to bed.
Nothing Xmas related yet, but started promoting a fansite tournament that the community manager for my game(Karune/StarCraft II) posted about on a major forum and even got Blizzard to provide prizes!
:D my blog’s traffic has been blowing up thx to your advice and Yaro’s
http://starfeeder.com
I have done a number of Christmas related posts including:
Guess the Famous Christmas Trees, Free Christmas Music MP3s and even some sound clips of my 14-year old son playing the guitar with his own arrangments of Christmas songs.
You can find them all here if you are interested:
http://www.rayfowler.org/category/christmas/
I launched an astore, and inserted one extra ad for gift cards. I have a little something planned for Monday’s post. Back at the beginning of the season I also concocted a holiday writing exercise, but that was some time ago.
The blogosphere is getting quiet, though. Is everyone out celebrating and shopping?
Melissa Donovan
Writing Forward
Actually, I’ve devoted some advertising space on my Apple-related blog iSights to charities and added rotators for some other non-profits.
‘Tis the season to give, not receive.
http://www.iSights.org/
I wrote an article on gift’s not to give to web people. (it’s a blog for web people).
I have got a new theme uploaded couple of hours ago. My affiliate sales is more than doubled and things are looking bright for next year.
Design-wise, I have given my blog a Christmasy feel with animated falling snowflakes and Christmasy icons taking the place of regular ones on my sidebar.
Every Christmas I would do up a series of posts, titled “Christmas Tree of the Day”, featuring 1 unique Christmas tree for each of the 12 days leading up to Christmas.
Wanna see what a tropical Christmas in Singapore looks like? Check out the 12 Christmas trees on my blog! (We’re up to Tree #8 now).
Christmas? Oh yeah, that is almost here. I keep thinking about Mardi Gras myself. Didn’t do much for Christmas, I think more about Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year.
I wrote an article on thoughtful and inexpensive gifts to get your clients and customers. Click my name for the link.
Well, I havn’t spiffed my personal blog up for christmas, but I am giving my mom a (new) blog for Christmas! I bought her the domain name of her blog and set up WordPress for her, which I hope she will find easier than the current Blogger interface. The blog is by no means finished but I know she will be thrilled.
I even tricked her into giving me her password and have imported all her past posts from the last 3 years! You can find them here:
http://www.couturesmith.com
I did not do anything with design for the holidays this year, Recovering from NaNo it was hard enough to keep a blog groove going this year. I also have been posting 6 days which has helped my hands a lot. So that has meant that Christmas related material is in the text of the posts.
I wrote a post NaNo summary on Dec. 4th. Starting with Dec. 5th I have had either a Christmas, winter activity or planning for the new year post. Most of it is fairly nostalgic.
Regularly designated posts are a Christmas memory series with a list. I did two polls on consecutive Fridays about traditions and did follow-up posts on the following Thursdays. Weds I have photo fun in Wordless Wednesdays with seasonal photos.
Mixed in have been posts about cards versus other seasonal communication channels, pageants and plays, Soldier’s Christmas letter 1945, year-end reflecting, turning a resolution into an achievable goal, Ski lessons and other life lessons they inspired.
I am writing on foods and memories tomorrow. Then I am prewriting a Christmas Eve Reflection, a Christmas Day post (probably something spiritual), and prepare Wednesday’s photo. The rest of the month will be devoted to recovering from the big day and the season in general and New Year’s or goal-related posts. The Friday after Christmas. I’ll probably run one last holiday poll on when to take down the tree.
Wow. This has been a busy writing month.
On my blog http://www.ifjesushadawebsite.net, I’ve spent the month blogging daily about Advent, Christmas, and other observations of the season. It’s been a really interesting project, especially as it’s upped my posting rate almost seven fold (usually, I just post on it weekly).
On my blog, I am planning to provide Christmas themed Comic strips so that people can place it on their blogs if they dont have anything to post! ^_^
I changed my RSS icon to one with a Santa hat – ie I haven’t done a whole lot!
I started working on improving the SEO of the site back in June and started optimizing affiliate programs in September, I’ve learned from past years the earlier the better to capitalize on the Christmas rush. I also planned some big posts that came out around the US thanksgiving.
My Christmas present to my blog was posting a podcast of our community Pay It Forward Night. A group of us went to IHOP, had two servers, and each got a $960 tip! It’s our second annual event and I thought it would be a cool gift to the community to record and post.
It seems that no photo can be inserted in your comments, anyway, i just came to say Merry X’mas!
For Christmas, I put a hat on my rss icon, making it look more festive and in theme with the season. I also rounded up the most popular posts over the last year. Didn’t really have much time to decorate, but hope the readers will like it.
Merry Xmas to all!