- As a blogger or e-commerce business owner,
you can cash in on the fun
that is a carefully curated holiday gift guide
by helping your readers find that perfect present.
But there's more to developing the perfect gift guide
than throwing together a list of ideas
and linking to a bunch of affiliate partners.
There's a lot to unpack.
So let's dive in.
- There is so much to unpack,
but before you begin,
you really want to figure out what appeals
to your readers and your audience.
So your readers aren't all the same.
Make sure to think about the different types
of personalities.
If you're writing a gift guide for home cooks, for example,
some people will like baking,
whereas others prefer to make other types of dishes
and will need different tools to get the job done.
Another thing to consider
is you don't want to recommend the same old stuff
everyone else is sharing.
Regurgitating identical lists as every other blog
isn't good enough to pull in lots of customers.
It's far too easy to get overwhelmed
if they're scrolling through hundreds of gifts.
Try to narrow down your list to 20 ideas or less.
Also, not everyone can or wants to spend a lot of cash
so think about the price ranges of your items.
You can do two guides,
one budget-friendly guide and one luxury list.
- Once you've got your list of items together,
it's time to collect the best photos.
Don't just save an image from Google
and assume, "Hey, it's okay to use."
It's better to be safe than sorry,
even when you're selling their products.
And make sure you have permission
to use the photos by contacting
the manufacturer or the brand.
And if you have the items on hand,
it may be easier to take your own images.
Plus that's fun, right?
Make sure to get really clear pictures with great lighting.
I recommend natural lighting,
especially if you're doing anything with food.
And the better they look,
the better they'll perform when they're shared.
- And whether you're making a commission
or just listing your own products,
you want your reader to use your links
so you get the profits and affiliate commissions.
Thankfully, your guide won't need a lot of copy,
because for the most part,
the pictures will do the talking for you.
All you really need is the full name of the product,
the cost, and the company that sells it.
Finally, where they can buy it.
But for SEO purposes,
you do want to include relevant text
that will boost your organic traffic.
So use the description space
to add personality to your guide.
This can mean using fun quotes
or your own reviews to grab readers' attention.
And be sure to give your guide a catchy title, too,
so it isn't the same as every other guide out there.
Your guide also should include a final call to action.
- You made your list and checked it twice.
But your work is far from done.
Now for the part you'll spend the most time on
if you actually want to get traffic
and see results from your efforts.
Hopefully you've already used relevant keywords
and optimized your copy for search engines
to drive organic traffic.
And now it's time to pull in as much traffic as possible
from social media and your email.
And it may be beneficial to purchase ads
on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest,
or even via Google to drive traffic to your gift guide.
- And once you've developed a useful gift guide
for one holiday,
you can repurpose it for all the holidays.
Think of any day that people might buy
a gift for someone else ,
like Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day,
my birthday and graduation season.
Let's get crazy with it and throw in Halloween, too.
Just keep in mind that if you're making
multiple gift guides,
you should use caution about copying and pasting
the same text onto your website in multiple places.
That can get your site flagged
for duplicate content by Google.
Other than the time it will take to produce them,
make as many gift guides as you'd like,
as long as you're helping your audience
come up with gift ideas and you're making money,
why not create new possibilities to generate more revenue?
- Good question, Nealey.
Why not?
And hopefully we've inspired you
to create a holiday gift guide for your audience.
While it isn't hard to do,
it does take time and careful consideration.
Before you know it, you could have gift guides
for every month of the year,
or you can simply promote one all year long.
The possibilities are endless.
All right, that's a wrap,
but your journey doesn't have to end here.
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Thanks for watching, this is The Journey.