Should You Blog Around The Holidays?

With Labor Day meaning an extra day off for us nine-to-fivers, a tempting thought came across my mind: I should skip blogging this week.

But my conscience soon kicked in. “Don’t let your readers down. They’re counting on a post from you come Tuesday.”

Then I had an epiphany. Do my readers (that’s you!) count on a blog post from me around the holidays?

So I came up with a balanced compromise: I’ll write a blog post about this.

I know I’m not the only one that blogs. In fact, many of my blog readers also maintain a blog. And we’re often told that to keep readers coming back, it’s a must to publish regularly.

But does that mean blogging around the holidays?

From New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day to Halloween, we have many days throughout the seasons to celebrate. Should our celebrations include blogging about the holidays—or taking a break it?

That all depends on your reader.

Why You Shouldn’t

After close to five years of blogging, I have noticed a pattern of who reads my blog and what posts are viewed the most around the holidays. And during many holidays, it’s sadly not my most recent post.

The hard truth is that readership plummets around a holiday.

For example, I published this post the day after Labor Day (even though Monday is my regular publishing day) because I knew that most of my readers were outside enjoying the last day of beach weather. When life returns to normal on Tuesday, my readers catch up on their emails and news feeds—and (hopefully) my blog.

Your content deserves the best chance at being read. You put in a lot of work writing, editing, publishing and sharing your post. So there’s no shame in holding off your post of genius until your readers are back from vaycay.

Does this mean you should quit your blog completely around a holiday? Of course not!

A holiday is a great opportunity for you to do some housekeeping and backend work such as:

• Get ahead on scheduling future blog posts
• Create an incentive for your readers to join your email list
• Upgrade your blog hosting
• Update your blog layout
• Clean out your WordPress plug-ins
• Research your competition

That list should keep you busy!

And Why You Should

Like I said earlier, most holidays are a bust when it comes to bringing in new readers and enticing my recurring readers to come back.

Key Phrase: Most holidays. But not all.

During the winter holiday season from Black Friday to Christmas Day, most blog traffic suffers. That’s because our readers—like ourselves—are too busy buying gifts, attending parties and preparing holiday meals to have leisure reading time, even for our favorite blogs.

Yet several blogs tailored to the right season can be quite successful around a holiday. Blog posts on the best way to prepare stuffing around Thanksgiving or best couples costumes around Halloween are sure to do well.

This is when you should pay attention to your readers. What do they search for in search engines around the holidays? Does it tie in with your blog theme? How can you create content that’s fitting to their needs around these holidays?

On my blog, I noticed that my readership spikes dramatically days after Christmas. Since my readers are goal-driven writers, I decided to write blog posts about New Year’s resolutions.

And every year, they are well received.

It’s not about blogging for the holidays. It’s about blogging for your readers.

If you can create a blog post that is in-tune with their life around the holidays, then go for it! To help you make this decision, study your readers’ behavior on your blog around pivotal holidays as well as research their online habits around the holidays.

The reason why you blog is to provide content that interests your readers. So don’t force a blog post on them because, like it or not, they won’t click on it when it’s something they don’t want to read.

What do you think? Should you blog around the holidays? Share your opinion in the comments section below.