How To Create a Gift Guide for Your Blog (That Actually Makes Money)

It’s no secret that one of the best ways to make money every holiday season is through gift guides. So here you’ll learn how to create a gift guide for your blog so that you don’t miss out on the holiday cash flow that circulates the internet each year.

And because the holidays come with so much cash, gift guides are becoming more popular amongst bloggers of all niches for this exact reason. Not only are they used as an easy way to suggest the perfect gifts for people’s loved ones, but they’re great for affiliate marketing too.

So let’s dive right in and teach you how to create a gift guide for your blog, no matter your niche.

Disclaimer: Please note this post may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a commission if clicked at no extra cost to you. Though the opinions remain my own

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What is a gift guide?

Gift guides are blog posts that list products or services that your readers can buy for a given person. 

Bloggers create these to recommend certain gifts that can also help readers discover new suggestions they might not have heard about before. 

And if a reader is on edge about a certain product, finding that same product recommendation as a gift idea will make it easier for them to decide whether it’s the right gift or not.

Why should you create a gift guide for your blog?

Now gift guides don’t only make it easy for readers to find the perfect gift, but it’s also the perfect opportunity for you to generate easy sales too.

In these types of blog posts, you’re recommending products and services you believe will be a good fit for your audience. Therefore, readers are trusting your expertise and are likely to go with your suggestion. 

It’s the perfect mix for generating affiliate marketing sales and driving traffic to your online shop, whether it’s for digital products or physical goods. 

Plus, it’s a great way to boost blog traffic around the holidays as many people are searching up various types of gift guides. In fact, the Profitable Bloggers Holiday Guide mentions how you could actually see a dip during the holidays if you don’t have some type of holiday content on your site.

For that reason, all niches should have a couple of gift guides on their website and here, you’re about to learn exactly how to create a gift guide for your blog.

Related Post: 110+ Christmas Blog Post Ideas for Every Niche

How To Create a Gift Guide for Your Blog

Creating a gift guide can be as simple or complex as you want it to be, but there are a few things to keep in mind when creating it. 

Below are some guidelines to follow when creating your gift guides.

Identify Who the Gift Guide is For

The first thing you want to do is identify who the gift guide is for.  

Who’s giving the gift? Who are they giving it to?  What’s the occasion?

And from there, you still want to break it down a bit further so that you can add various subcategories into your post. 

What’s that person into? What type of products or services do you think they would really like? 

These questions are ones you’ll want to think about beforehand as the more specific you can get in your guide, the higher chances of you getting a sale (or two).

Target the Right Long-Tail Keywords

From there, the next thing you want to do is keyword research. 

You’ll want to start with simple keywords describing what you answered above. For example, “gifts for moms” and then see what populates in a keyword research tool like KeySearch here. 

When you do this, you’ll notice that it may give you different variations for the keywords you entered. However, to increase your chances of having your blog post appear closer to the top of the search results, aim for long-tail keywords. 

This means finding longer keyword phrases that are more specific as they’ll usually have a better keyword score. 

So your keyword phrase of “gifts for moms” may turn into “thoughtful birthday gifts for moms” or something even longer like “sentimental gifts for mom from daughter” which is exactly what we want.

Related Post: Increase Blog Traffic Using KeySearch

Make Your Gift Guide Evergreen

Although you’re searching for long-tail keywords, try not to include specific holidays (if you can). 

You’ll want to do it this way so that your gift guide can be repurposed for every holiday instead of just one.

Now, I know that sometimes it may be hard to find good keywords that don’t include a holiday so it’s totally up to you on what you think will be best for your site. In some cases, it might make sense to make it holiday-specific.

But do note that a “Christmas gift ideas for grandma” gift guide will only make sense to promote during the winter holidays versus “custom gift ideas for grandma.” The second phrase is one you’ll be able to promote no matter what holiday is approaching whether it’s a birthday, Christmas, Mother’s Day, etc.

All you’ll have to do is create new graphics for each holiday and adjust your title according to the season. But hey, I’m getting ahead of myself here LOL. We’ll talk about promotion further down.

Related Post: How to Use Canva to Create Graphics (for free)

Choose Products to Promote

Once you have found the long-tail keyword phrase you want to target, you can begin researching the products or services that best suit your gift guide blog post.

You can start by listing out your own personal recommendations, including any of your own relevant products. 

From there, you can begin to do some research on Google or Amazon to see what gifts are trending and which have high ratings. And if you’re an Amazon affiliate, these gift ideas would be perfect to add to your list as Amazon has high conversion rates.

This leads me to the next point, adding affiliate links to your gift guide.

Related Post: Getting Started With Affiliate Marketing for New Bloggers

Add Affiliate Links to Your Gift Guide Post

Like I mentioned, you also want to include products that you’re an affiliate for, because this is how you’ll make money duh, LOL.

Affiliate marketing networks like Shareasale and FlexOffers usually have brands that offer higher commissions so are good places to check for affiliate products to promote on your gift guide. 

Once you have been approved to be an affiliate for certain products or brands, add your affiliate links to your blog post so you can earn commission every time someone buys through it. 

Related Post: How To Add Affiliate Links & Disclaimers to Blog Posts

Add Images Showcasing Affiliate Products

When adding your affiliate links to your post, a good practice is also to check if they have any HTML codes with the image of the product you’re recommending.  

The reason why you want to include images is because the reader’s eyes are more drawn to them. So by adding several images of the products you’re recommending, the higher chances of them actually being clicked on.

However, if the affiliate doesn’t have any HTML codes for you to use, you have three options:

• You can reach out to the brand and request to use their product images on your site. You can do this by contacting the affiliate manager email listed in the affiliate network
• You can find stock images that include a picture of the product you are recommending. Here is a list of my favorite stock image sites.
• If you already own the product, then you can opt to take your own picture to use on your blog post

And not all products need to have an image. So find a balance between text and images when creating your blog post outline.

Optimize Your Gift Guide Post

One of the most important steps on how to create a gift guide for your blog is to make sure you optimize it. 

SEO (search engine optimization) is extremely important not only for gift guides, but for all of your blog posts. 

When optimizing, use your long-tail keywords in the title, some headlines and sprinkled throughout the gift guide post itself. 

This is one way to help your gift guide appear higher in the search engines results for people to find. And if you have other related blog posts, link to those as well.

Related Post: SEO Tips for Beginners to Thrive at Blogging

Prepare Your Site for the Holidays

Now, who said that all you have to do is write a blog post in a gift guide format? Not me LOL.

In order to maximize your revenue, you’ll want to prepare your site for the holidays as well. 

And look, I’m not a techy person at all which is why I turned to The Profitable Blogger’s Guide for this. 

In the guide, you’ll learn why site speed is more important during the holidays and how you can customize your site for the holidays without slowing it down. 

Plus, there are some extra bonus tips on how to ensure your gift guide is visited by readers who landed on your site through a different post.

How To Create a Gift Guide in Canva

Yay, you’re so much closer to creating your gift guide for your blog. 

But now, it’s time to show you how to turn your blog post into a catchy gift guide social media graphic for you to promote.

Check out the video below for step-by-step instructions on how to create a gift guide for your blog using Canva.

Recorded with Screencast-O-Matic

Promote Your Gift Guide

Alright, since you now know how to create a gift guide for your blog, it’s time to talk about promoting it. Because hello… you want to let readers know that your gift guide exists right? LOL

Below are the several places where you can promote your gift guide.

Pinterest

Pinterest will probably be the best place to promote your gift guide and you’ll want to get your pins published there early each year. 

Since your post is *hopefully* evergreen, you can batch create new pins for every holiday and set them up in Tailwind to auto-post each year. Tailwind is the top scheduling app bloggers use to schedule out pins in advance, making it super easy on you.

In Tailwind, you can also add your pin to Tailwind Communities which is where other bloggers look to find more pins to share to their own boards. Test Tailwind out for free here and see exactly how this can simplify your pinning strategy.

Facebook Groups

If you have your own Facebook group, you should definitely share your guide there. This is especially because your group members enjoy the niche you’re in and want to learn more about it from you. 

Plus, they may even share it with their friends which brings more eyes to your post and group. 

If you’re a member in someone else’s group that’s related to your niche, be sure to check the rules to see if self-promotion or blog links are allowed. Not all groups allow this, so it’s important to check before you leave your link or you’ll risk being removed from the group.

Blogging groups with share threads are also a good place to add your blog link to when just starting out. Share threads are where bloggers help share each other’s content.

Related Post: Best Facebook Groups for Bloggers to Grow Your Blog

Social Media

All social media platforms are great outlets for sharing your gift guide. However, you don’t have to share them all if you’re not active in them. 

Pick and choose which social media platforms you’re most active in and which ones your audience hangs out in. It could be Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. and this is where you would want to share your post.

To make social media sharing quicker and easier, you can use a social media scheduling tool like Publer (which is what I use), and set your blog posts to share on autopilot.

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And remember, there is always something to be happy for… Cheers to blogging! What are you cheering to today?

Lucy