5 types of Christmas blog posts that boost traffic to your website

During the Christmas season, many people jump onto Google and social media looking for fresh Christmas-related ideas. And most want new content, not last year’s content. If you have a blog on your website, then this is a great opportunity to publish some fresh Christmas blog posts to it and attract customers⁠—as long as the content is useful!

Let me show you how you can use your business blog to serve Christmas content that people will find useful in the lead up to, during, and in the aftermath of the silly season.

But before we begin, be warned:

If you want to attract some of these people to your website, then you have a tight window of opportunity to piggyback on the Christmas season and the keywords that come with it. So, if you’re blogging about anything related to Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year then do it ASAP. Then use social media and email marketing to share your links with your audience and grab their attention before the entire season is over.

Don’t procrastinate… you’ll miss the boat!

Why use Christmas blog posts?

Let me give you an example.

You’ve always found business a bit slow during the Christmas season or you’ve always found that your website traffic tends to slow down during November-January. Now you’ve decided to attract people to your site to either make a purchase, download a PDF or join your list.

Here’s what you could do:

Use your business blog to share Christmas-related tips, insights or news that would make people curious and therefore click through to your website.

How exactly? By using relevant Christmas-related keywords either on their own or alongside your usual keywords.

Example:

Say you’re a mechanic and you need to boost sales. You’d like to attract drivers who are planning to drive long distance for Christmas.

You write a blog post about why they should prepare their vehicles for long-distance trips. You cover the dangers of not being prepared, and why they need a professional to service their vehicles for them.

You also throw in some tips on how to choose a mechanic to carry out the service.

You close with a call to action, plus some links to your Servicing page and Contact Us page.

Overall, your goal is to create and share timely content that your readers will find useful right now. The content must focus on solutions to help them solve their problems. Just like I’m doing now. I’m guessing you came here because you have a blog and wanted to know how to use it to promote your business during the Christmas season. Yeah?

As you’re reading through my blog post, you’ll notice how I’ve strategically placed links and calls to action to take you to my About Rhonda page and my blog content services page. I’ve done this to help you discover more about who I am and how I can help create content for your blog.

If you’re interested in my services, then you’d contact me right away or when you’re ready.

That’s why we publish Christmas blog posts!  We want to use our blog posts to attract people who want to read Christmas-related content.

Common Christmas blog post ideas

Christmas-related pieces come in all formats and can be used for any marketing purpose. Here are just a few ideas to get you started.

1. Christmas blog posts that showcase what you do

A perfect way to incorporate Christmas topics into your business blog is to focus on the reasons your customers would need your services during the holiday season. Like I did earlier.

Here’s another example:

You’re a family portrait photographer and you want more families to make bookings for November-January. A blog post to showcase last year’s Christmas family portraits is the perfect place to start.

In your post, you give some tips on how to choose a family portrait photographer or tips on how to pose for your Christmas portraits. Be sure to keep it interesting. Show them what you’re good at so they think of you when they want Christmas family portraits. Boom!

Christmas blog posts that showcase what you do can be used for any service or product you want to promote. The goal is to simply mix your usual topics with the word “Christmas”.

2. Christmas posts that inspire people

You can inspire people through how-to posts that don’t focus on your solutions at all. Instead of talking about your solutions, you’re helping people use their imagination. And then you either place links to your pages within the post or insert a call to action at the bottom to prompt them to get in touch, leave a comment or Like you on Facebook. Whatever your goal.

Some topic examples:

• “How to Make Your Own Santa Suit” (if you’re a dressmaker)
• “How to Plan Your Christmas Menu” (if you’re a caterer or chef)
• “How to Make a Christmas Wreath Like a Pro” (if you’re a florist)
• “How to Buy Expensive Christmas Gifts Without Going Broke” (if you’re a financial planner)
• “Why You Should Go to Bali Right After Christmas” (if you’re a travel agent)

Put on your creative hat and find a topic you know inside and out that you can share without giving away your secrets. After all, you want readers to spend money with you, not try doing those things themselves.

3. Blog posts that are really Christmas guides

Christmas is a stressful time and so people are constantly searching Google for Christmas shopping guides and ideas. Use your blog to help them shop for gifts for their loved ones.

Some examples for the seasonal blog posts:

• “2017 Perth Christmas Event Guide” (if you’re a tour operator)
• “21 Books to Buy for Kids This Christmas” (if you’re a speech therapist)
• “The Ultimate Guide to Organising Christmas Dinners” (if you own a café)
• “Best Christmas Gift Ideas for Business Mums” (if you own a stationery store)
• “11 Christmas Gifts for Car Lovers” (if you own an auto repair workshop)

Stuck for a topic? Watch what people are talking about in Facebook groups. What are they complaining about? What are they saying they struggle with? What recommendations are they asking for? What kind of tips would they appreciate?

Or if you spot a blog post you like but it’s covering the whole of Australia or it’s targeting readers in another country, then without copying the post just write your own version and put a local spin on it.

4. Blog posts that include an expert roundup

An expert roundup post is a post in which you present quotes and tips you’ve personally collected from your expert colleagues whose services complement yours.

With these types of Christmas blog posts, you can bring even more eyeballs to your website. That’s because when you email your post link to each expert that you’ve quoted, they will share the post with their audiences.

Why would readers read your post? Because they yearn for insights from industry experts. Now imagine what they would say about you if you were to place several experts into one post!

Here’s an example of how a family therapist could write an expert roundup post:

Topic: “Experts Say Christmas Planning Shouldn’t Be This Depressing”

Target audience: Parents of children aged 0 to 16

Several experts to interview in this blog post:

• Psychologist commenting on how to manage Christmas stress
• Babysitting service commenting on how to choose a babysitter to help out
• Financial planner commenting on how to manage money stress this Christmas
• School teacher commenting on how to keep children busy on Christmas day
• Chef commenting on what to cook a day or two ahead for Christmas dinner
• Travel agent commenting on hotels to recommend to relatives who are visiting
• Home cleaning service commenting on how to do a little bit every day
• Shopping centre manager commenting on how to make savings this Christmas
• And others… you get the idea.

And here’s how the therapist could prepare a much simpler expert roundup blog post with the help of their audience:

Topic: “Perth Parents Share Tips for A Stress-Free Christmas”

(Um, yeah… parents are experts, too!)

Target audience: Parents of children aged 0 to 16

Experts to interview: Parents sharing tips with other parents. Perhaps simply ask them for their top tips and use then quote them like this:

“Buy everything in bulk and then share the costs with relatives and friends,” said Jane from Subiaco.

5. Blog posts about your favourite <whatever/whoever>

Christmas is one of those holidays when it’s OK to share other things you’re passionate about on your business blog yet have nothing to do with your business. Whether it’s about your favourite recipes, hobbies, places to go and so on, there’s always a Christmas-related topic you can write about.

This type of post helps people get to know and like you. Your call to action could be to sign up to your newsletter, follow your Facebook page or connect with you on LinkedIn.

Examples to consider:

• “Here’s What This Artist Eats for Christmas”
• “Why I Send Wine to My Coaching Clients Every Christmas”
• “Christmas Quilting Patterns for Beginners Like Me”
• “Confession of an Accountant: I Collect Garden Gnomes!”

As you can tell, this is one of the easiest blog formats to write. It’s about YOU!

There you go. These are just a few ideas for injecting some Christmas topics into your content strategy.

A final tip

Before choosing your topic, use Facebook, Twitter, Google Trends, Pinterest and other similar places to find some trending keywords and topics to help you create relevant posts for Christmas.

If you found this post helpful, please share it with your business network.

This post was originally published in 2016 and it continues to attract traffic to my website every year! Winning!