A Holiday Gift Guide for Bloggers

I’ve been a blogger for … jeez, how many years now? I think I started my first blog in 2010 and moved to Seeing Sunshine in 2012. So I’m going on six years of blogging. Over that time, I’ve figured out what helps me with my blog and some things that I would love to have for my blogging “career.”

Do you have a friend who’s a blogger? Or perhaps someone trying to get into the blogging world? This is my list of gift ideas for bloggers.

Blogging Holiday Gift Guide

Coschedule

I just recently started my free trial of Coschedule — you can get a 14-day free trial to see if you like it — and I LOVE it. It makes scheduling my social media posts so much easier! It saves me a ton of time and seriously makes me so excited about blogging again! You should have heard me telling my husband all about Coschedule. He didn’t understand any of it, but he could hear the excitement in my voice for sure! I’m hoping to get a subscription to this service for Christmas this year, so I will never have to do social media without Coschedule again!

 

Comments

Here’s an easy one. Bloggers like comments. We like to see people reading our blog posts and responding. We love when we get comments on our posts. Give them this gift by writing genuine comments on their posts. I love when I know family and friends actually read my blog — nothing is quite as validating as that.

Money for Facebook Promotions

Did you know that Facebook hardly ever shows our posts to our followers? Facebook reach is very low these days, and it’s because Facebook wants you to spend money to promote your posts. This can be frustrating at times. I promoted my first post about a month ago, and it went really well. I’d love to do this more, but of course it costs money. I don’t believe Facebook has gift cards! But you can give your blogging friend some money that is specifically for Facebook promotions. You could even add money to their PayPal account and let them know their Facebook promo budget.

Encouragement

Blogging can be so discouraging sometimes. Mean comments or no comments, comparing ourselves to other bloggers, wishing our numbers were higher, wishing we had more time for this or that — sometimes we just wonder if it’s even worth it. A note, a card, or an email letting us know what our blog means to you, how our words have helped you, or perhaps that you respect us or are proud of us for sticking to it — that would be such a sweet gift. Definitely give your blogging friend something they can go back to. For instance, if you say it to their face, give it a few weeks and they’ll forget about it. But as a card or email, they can save it and look back at it during those difficult days when they just want to give up.

Subscribe

One of the biggest goals as a blogger is to grow your email subscription list. If you haven’t subscribed, do it! You can also forward their emails to your friends or share the link to subscribe to their blog with your friends.

Facebook Engagement

Did I mention Facebook doesn’t show our posts to very many people? You can help! By liking, commenting, or sharing our Facebook posts, the Facebook algorithm will show our posts to more people. I love it when people comment on my Facebook posts — and love it even more when they share those posts!

Photoshop Elements

A big part of having a successful blog is having professional images and graphics for each post. Photoshop Elements is what I use to create my images. It’s easy to use and you can do lots with it. I wouldn’t want to use anything else.

New Blog Design

If you want to be taken seriously as a blogger, you need a great blog design. People won’t stick around on your website for long if the blog isn’t appealing to the eyes. Branding is important and so is readability. If your blogger friend doesn’t have a professional design with a Genesis Framework, they need this. This can be pricey depending on how much work needs to be done and which designer is hired. It made a huge difference when I had my blog professionally designed with a logo and branding.

Ticket to a Blogging Conference

One of the best ways to learn more about blogging, connect with other bloggers, and feel refreshed and ready to blog is to attend a blogging conference. I’ve been to Allume twice and loved it both times. There are other blog conferences I would love to attend too. In fact, there’s one in Indianapolis that I’d like to go since it’s so close to home! Blogging conferences can get expensive — tickets are pricey and then bloggers have to pay for travel and a hotel. By helping them pay for part of this, it can really make the experience even better!

Life Planner

Bloggers need to be organized. There’s a lot of planning and scheduling involved with blogging. Having a life planner is a great idea and can be so helpful for a blogger. I use my Erin Condren Life Planner to brainstorm my blog posts, schedule them by month and even down to the day. I make to-do lists in my planner too. I love how these planners are pretty and fun and full of inspiration.

Virtual Assistant

Sometimes, being a blogger is just A LOT to handle. There’s just not enough time to do it all! Or perhaps your blogging friend would love to learn more about SEO or monetization. Hiring a virtual assistant is a great idea! Virtual assistants can do everything from editing posts to creating images to coaching the blogger on SEO or monetization. I work with Singing Through the Rain LLC as a virtual assistant, and we do all sorts of services for bloggers. I especially enjoy scheduling social media for bloggers — because I get to use Coschedule! 🙂

Elite Blog Academy

My husband got me this online course so that I could work on improving my blog. I have learned a lot from this course, and I’m not even finished with it yet. I highly recommend this course. They aren’t always open, but you can be added to the waiting list.

Money or Gift Cards for Shutterstock, Dollar Photo Club, or Creative Market

Like I’ve said before, having professional images on your blog is so important for being taken seriously as a blogger. We can’t always take a photo we want, and some of us just don’t have photography skills. Shutterstock and Dollar Photo Club give us the opportunity to buy stock images to use for our blog posts. Creative Market is another great option — they have more than just images; they also have fonts, templates, and more. I just received a gift card for Creative Market this year.

Camera

Some bloggers love to take their own photos for this posts. In fact, a lot of bloggers would like to but just don’t have the resources to do so. Getting your blogging loved one a really good camera could be a great gift — definitely a gift they will use and love. I asked a professional photographer what camera she would recommend for a blogger. The answer? The Canon Rebel T5. You could also get your blogging friend a photography class.

Are you a blogger? What would you like to receive for Christmas?