7 Ways Bloggers Can Capitalize on the Holiday Season

From a business perspective, the holidays are really only about one thing: making more money than at any other time of the year. While this may sound cutthroat and contrary to the spirit of the season, the reality is that many retailers depend on the holidays to make up for slower times and generate a huge chunk of their yearly profits. If you run a blog with the intention of making money, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t grab a piece of the proverbial pumpkin pie too. From Thanksgiving to New Years and everything in between, here are seven ways for bloggers to capitalize on the holiday season.

1. Help Your Readers Navigate Through Black Friday

It’s safe to say that nobody really likes Black Friday, even if they appreciate the deals available to those who drive off into the darkness to stand in line in front of their favorite big-box retailer. Virtually every site in your niche will already be compiling a list of deals based on circular ads, so why not go the extra mile by helping them decide between the best deals?

If your niche is wireless internet, you might create an article along the lines of Compare Verizon 4g to Alternative Providers” instead of simply rehashing the cost of Best Buy’s mobile hotspot hardware compared to Walmart’s, which your user can readily find at a thousand other sites. Anyone can tell that one price is lower than another, but it takes expert advice to determine which is a better value.

2. Compile a List of Cyber Monday Deals

Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, is the online shopping equivalent to Black Friday. Unfortunately, it’s even more confusing than Black Friday because most retailers don’t announce their sale items and prices until Cyber Monday itself. For this, a comprehensive list of deals relevant to your niche is actually called for. If your blog specializes in a discussion of computer components, you should log onto sites like Newegg.com, Amazon.com and TigerDirect.com shortly after midnight to start hunting for deals and assessing their value. Your readers will truly appreciate the gesture when they wake up to start online shopping.

3. Tell a Personal Story About Your Thoughts on the Holidays

The holidays give you a perfect opportunity to connect with your readers on a more personal level by sharing a story or your thoughts regarding the season. Web users are more attracted to blogs when they feel like they can relate to the author. If you haven’t already done so, this may be a great opportunity to post a video in which you speak directly to your readership. Whether you love or hate the holidays, odds are good that you’ll have something worthwhile (or at least humorous) to discuss. Examples include your worst Thanksgiving dinner, your favorite Christmas present and your best New Years party. An interactive topic such as this is also a great way to coax your readers into leaving some comments.

4. Share Possible New Years Resolutions Related to Your Niche

Many blog niches are conducive to compiling a list of possible New Years resolutions, or ways to keep something that’s normally rather ill-fated. The solution will be obvious for a health and fitness blog, but somewhat more challenging if your niche doesn’t directly relate to personal betterment. For example, if your blog focuses on web development, you might suggest New Years resolutions such as learning one of many newer programming languages, and describing the benefits and best applications of each.

5. Craft a Humor Piece Relating Your Niche to a Holiday

The holidays are often more stressful than they ought to be, and your readers may be looking for some comic relief as a result. IGN, a video game review and news website that’s a little too big to be classified as a “blog,” recently capitalized on the holidays with a humorous article entitled Seven Annoying Gamers to Avoid This Thanksgiving. The article works because it’s funny, at least partially accurate, related to both the site’s niche and a holiday, and targeted squarely at the site’s audience. It received 41 pages of comments, a testament to the kind of reaction it mustered from the site’s readership.

6. Run a Promotion of Your Own

Instead of just pointing your readers to other sales and deals, now might be the time to run a holiday promotion of your own. Give your visitors a reason to convert to repeat visitors by offering a different promotion every day or week of the season, and not announcing the nature of each deal in advance. Once your readers get into the habit of checking your blog on a daily basis, they may continue that trend well into the new year.

7. Organize a Holiday-Themed Contest Based on Your Niche

This is another great way to get your readers involved in your blog, potentially while generating some free content at the same time. Ask your readers to send pictures, videos, prose, or any other type of content with a holiday theme that relates to your niche. Offer a popular item, such as a tablet PC or an e-reader, as the top prize. The small investment you make in the prize itself will pay off many times over in the amount of traffic and publicity you generate for your blog.

This article is written by Mitcho Conner. He is an Internet writer and he regularly blogs about new tips and tricks.