How to Use Seasonal Blog Posts and Get Killer Traffic

How soon should bloggers start publishing seasonal blog posts to gain maximum traction for their posts? Well, the answer may surprise you.

Many people complain when they start seeing Christmas items available in craft stores in July…. Except for the crafters. It takes months to create all of those items sold at Christmas boutique sales that start in November. Those sellers know they need to plan and create early to meet demand.

Those summer barbecue meals you see in food magazines on the newsstand in late May were probably created in December and January and planned before that.

Bloggers don’t need quite as much lead time, but it is always a good idea to plan ahead. While seasonal posts may not be relevant throughout the year, they can be reused annually to generate traffic and income year after year.

Here are some ideas and tools to get you started planning your seasonal posts.

Seasonal Blog Post Ideas for Any Niche

Holiday posts are not exclusively for mom bloggers or those in the craft and food niches. With a little creativity, seasonal posts can be a great fit for any blogger. Here are a few ideas to get you thinking:

• crafts
• recipes
• gift guides (any niche can do a gift guide)
• home decor (tablescapes, mantel decorations, front porch ideas)
• planning and calendars (printable Thanksgiving meal planner)
• emotional health (dealing with holiday or family stress)
• physical health (sticking to your workout routine during the holidays)
• travel (places to visit off season, travel tips for a specific holiday)
• beauty (make up for special occasions, hairstyles for heat and humidity)
• style (what to wear on New Year’s Eve)
• new year’s resolutions (how to keep, motivation, etc.)
• spring cleaning
• photography tips for summer, snowy days, first day of school
• business or blogging tips for holiday time (like this post! 😉 )

When to Publish Seasonal Blog Posts

A Valentine’s Day post published on February 13th is not going to get as much traffic as one published in January and shared on social media several times leading up to February 14.

Some of the links below are affiliate links: the International Bloggers’ Association or I, Audrey Humaciu, may earn a commission for purchases through the links at no cost to you. More information is available here.

The Pinterest scheduling experts at Tailwind say it takes at least two weeks for a Pin to start gaining traction. Anne Keery, creator of the Perfect Gift Guides course explains that it can take a gift guide post 6 months to get significant traffic from search engines and social media.

If you are not in the habit of using an editorial calendar I highly recommend that you start. You can use a physical calendar, a generic online calendar (i.e. Google Calendar) or my personal favorite CoSchedule. Read more about how I use CoSchedule for seasonal posts here.

Look at the major holidays of the year and start thinking about the posts you want to create for them. Not sure what to write about for your audience? Just leave a placeholder like “Easter craft” and make it more specific later.

Put your idea on your editorial calendar at least a month in advance.

[socialpug_tweet tweet=”If you want to get traffic on time, you’ve gotta plan ahead of time. Here’s how to make that happen!” display_tweet=”If you want to get traffic on time, you’ve gotta plan ahead of time. Here’s how to make that happen!”]

Some people are going to start looking for Christmas ideas in September, some are going to wait until mid-December. The posts published in September will attract the early searchers and increase the popularity of the post so the search engines and social media are more likely to show that content to the procrastinators.

Some types of posts will need more lead time than one month. Spring Break travel needs to be booked more than a month in advance, so people will be looking for ideas earlier. Whereas most people are not looking for capturing the perfect first day of school photo in June.

It took me an hour or two to plan out my seasonal posts for the year. Some are generic “Christmas cookie roundup” while others are as specific as “getting the perfect family photo for your Christmas cards”. Now I will not be sitting in late November looking at a blank calendar trying to remember that brilliant post idea I had back in July.

Keep Promoting Older Seasonal Posts

Just because you published your Bubbe’s Kreplach recipe two months before Yom Kippur, doesn’t mean you just leave it sitting there. Keep promoting it on social media all the way until a few days before the event. The main benefit of posting early is to help the post get shared and reshared before the holiday. Get it in front of the early adopters and the late planners repeatedly.

When the holiday comes back around next year, don’t leave the post sitting in the back of your blogging closet hoping someone will come looking for it. Dust it off and get it back in circulation again. Check out this post for refreshing old blog posts. After it is updated start promoting it on social media again.

Work Your Plan and Adjust as Needed

Evergreen posts that are relevant any time of year are probably the bulk of the posts on your blog, but that doesn’t mean Seasonal Posts don’t have their place. Post them early, promote them leading up to the holiday and then spruce them up and promote the again next year. These simple steps will help increase the visibility of your posts and take some of the pressure off of you so you can enjoy the holiday too.

Other IBA Posts to Help Plan Your Seasonal Blog Posts:

• Need An Editorial Calendar? Use Google Drive Sheets!
• Save Time on Social Media – Use CoSchedule!
• Holiday Season Success: 5 Action-Oriented Survival Tips for Bloggers
• Practical Tips on How to Create and Brainstorm Blog Ideas

Know another blogger who needs this content? Help them get access – and earn some cash at the same time. Sign up as an IBA affiliate!