10 reasons why I don't write seasonal posts
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'Tis the season to be jolly! Bloggers everywhere have already started writing festive posts. But not me. Here are 10 reasons why.
1. They're only relevant once a year.
If you write a post that only gets a few comments, don't worry - people may find it in the coming weeks and months.
The same is not true of seasonal posts. A post about Christmas is not much good for the rest of the year. On the upside, you can unearth your Christmas posts each year. You could link to them from your latest posts or in your sidebar when the season rolls around once more.
The way I see it, you're going to write a lot of posts for the rest of the year, and some blogs don't lend themselves all that well to seasonal posts.
2. They're not relevant to everyone.
As an example, the US and Canada celebrate Thanksgiving at different times, and not everyone in the world celebrates it at all. Some religions do not celebrate Christmas.
This doesn't mean you can't write any seasonal posts, but is a seasonal post going to be relevant to your readers? What do your readers come to your blog for?
3. A lot of other people will write them.
It's like every family member giving you a slightly different pair of socks for Christmas. You're going to get sick of that pretty quickly.
Lots of other bloggers will be writing seasonal posts. Want to stand out? Don't follow the crowd. Or, put your own unique spin on the season.
4. I don't have a blog that sells products.
One good thing about Christmas is that product-related blogs can go to town on Christmas gifts, sales, special offers and so on. However, I don't sell products on my blog - and there's not much else I can write about that's connected to Christmas.
I do sell private ads and I may decide to run a sale from time to time... but I wouldn't write a post just to announce a sale.
5. I don't buy Christmas presents.
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, but I thought I'd throw it in there. It's not a religious thing, just a choice my wife and I made in 2005.
I guess you could say I don't write about Christmas because I don't really celebrate Christmas quite so publicly as other people might. We see the family, but that's not connected to my blog.
6. Seasonal posts can get out of control.
One seasonal post can quickly become multiple seasonal posts - thereby overrunning a blog. People may stop reading your blog until the season is over - but they may not remember to come back. Meanwhile, once the season is over, you're out of post ideas, you've got the "post"-holiday blues (no pun intended... honest), ... you may even close your blog!
Perhaps I'm being a little pessimistic here, but hopefully you can run your blog all year round - not just during special occasions.
7. I don't want to lose my posting rhythm.
If you write seasonal posts for a while then go back to "normal" posts, you may find it's harder to get the regular posts completed. It's a tough one to avoid though, as things do feel a little different when you're not in your usual routine.
But blogging is one thing that can help you to stick to some kind of a routine - and if you make time for it even when it's the holiday season, I think you'll be glad you did.
8. I don't want to write irrelevant posts.
A seasonal post does not have to be bad, but if you get too caught up in the season, it's all too easy to go season-crazy and forget to link the post back to your niche.
If you're going to write a seasonal post, at least try and link it back to your niche, and make it a post that's worth reading.
9. A seasonal post is unlikely to be of interest to someone reading my blog at this time.
Most of the people who celebrate a certain holiday season may not even be online to read a seasonal post. The people who stop by might be expecting a "normal" post - perhaps they came to your blog to get away from the seasonal stuff on other blogs!
10. If I wrote seasonal posts... this post would not exist.
If I wrote seasonal posts, I wouldn't be able to write a list about why I don't write them!
I guess I could justify my reasons for writing a seasonal post instead.
Ironically this is a bit of a seasonal post, because it's about other seasonal posts!
Do you write seasonal posts? What do you think of seasonal posts on other blogs?
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Comments on 10 reasons why I don't write seasonal posts
2
You list some good reasons why you don't write seasonal posts. Lucky for me, I have multiple blogs so I can be festive and seasonal at http://www.web-betty-blog.com and leave well enough alone at 10 things. :)
3
I particularly appreciated your points one and six. Especially the bit about posts being discoverable and useful long after you have written them. My most viewed post ever, which has gotten over 3000 StumbleUpon visitors initially got no notice and no comments and only months and months later became a success.
And last year I started to sign up for something called Holidailies, which was a deal where you pledged to do a Christmas post every day in December. I passed and instead decided to do 12 posts on '12 books for Christmas' (thinking of the Christmas carol) and it darn near killed me.
Alan (is about to start working on my 300th post!)
4
True and i completely accepts with the author. Expressing best wishes on a special occasion may be the way of give a sort of soft corner in the minds of readers to whom that occasion belongs to and the side effect is as you mentioned the irrelevant people get bored.
Let the blogger stick to his guns and a best wish is enough rather than writing full posts about them.
5
I think it largely depends on your blog topic. Seeing as my tag line is 'as a matter of heart'; whereby I write about all matters of the heart. I can write about Christmas till I turn blue because that's what Christmas is all about: heart, love, warmth.
Scrooge :P
6
It's not just Christmas - April fools day brings out a lot of "gag" posts. I don't think the bloggers realize that those blog posts get indexed and "served up" all year long.
I recently had a guest blog post which referenced the year 2008. I removed that reference because the blog post will be relevant for YEARS to come. In 10 years, when someone sees that post - I don't want them to KNOW it's a 10 year old post!
7
You're correct here. I see them as a waste of time and people will only be interested during that season.
8
On the other hand, page views from my regular readers are way down between now and New Years Day. A great post is likely to get lost over the holidays. I don't do holiday posts myself, but they surte beat "Wordpress admin panel repeat announcement Wednesdays".
9
I generally do them. But somehow I relate them back to my creations or I am creative about writing them. But, I only do one rather then day after day for a week. I realized while looking at blogs that I too get tired of seeing the same topic blog after blog. However if it is an interesting post I will stop and read it.
What does make me crazy is that everyone thinks they need to add music to their blog at this time of the year!
10
Heyhey :)
Good points here. Didn't think of some.
Great post! :)
11
Thanks for the comments everyone. :)
12
You've reminded me of a page I published on my personal site that I would link to every year. Itis a basic Christmas message (with a twist). I'll have to find it and return to my site!
13
To say that people will only be interested during that season is silly. Of course it has a short span. But so do many other posts we make. If you post about a new WordPress version that post has a short life too. Is that a reason not to write it? Maybe. But it really doesn't seem to stop many people.
A post which is relevant for a short time is called a news post. Not likely it will be dug out later cause it will be out of date. News does that. It's only new a short time.
14
Laura, the point about WordPress releases and other news reinforces my point. Not every site should be telling us the same news. Now, if you run a news site, that's one thing - but I think some sites include posts that aren't necessary. Going crazy with off-topic posts such as these can be really off-putting to the reader.
15
Hum, this reminds me of the old riddle, that goes something like- "Is there a fourth of July in England?"
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Interesting take on the seasonal posts. My blog is about decorating, so for me, I can write about the different seasons...but I do still struggle sometimes to stay in my niche.
So, I started another blog, a self-hosted one that will be more broad in topic, but self-hosting and me don't seem to work well together...so not sure where that is going. It's making me want to pull my hair out, lol.
I think it just all boils down to finding your niche and staying there, or at least not wandering too far away from it.
Great post!
Bella