How to Prepare Your Blog for Q4

Most bloggers make the majority of their income during the 4th quarter of the year. This is because traffic tends to be higher in most niches and brands are spending more on marketing before the holidays and the start of the new year.

This is why you want to be sure to plan ahead for Q4 and have your blog ready so you can maximize your earnings. If you don’t have a plan you will be leaving money on the table.

When it comes to planning for Q4 you want to start as early as possible but even if you read this after Q4 starts you can use a lot of these tips to boost your blog earnings.

How to Prepare Your Blog for Q4

Analyze Your Data

You want to go into your Google Analytics account and look at the past Q4, if possible look at a few years. While looking at the data ask yourself these questions.

• Which posts did really well?
• Which posts did I think would do well but didn’t?
• How did my seasonal content do in general?

You’ll then make a list of your top-performing posts and your seasonal content that didn’t do well.

For the posts that did well, you want to decide the best ways to promote that content again this year. These are the things you need to consider.

• Does the post need to be updated?
• Is it monetized properly?
• When did this post start getting traffic?
• Where did this post do the best?

And for the seasonal posts that underperformed you want to consider the following.

• Can I make updates to the post to help it perform better?
• Did I promote it well last year?
• How can I promote it this year?

I use spreadsheets on Airtable to track all of my data for Q4 posts. I keep track of things like when I want to start promoting, if the post needs to be updated, and if I need to add affiliate links.

The method I use for analyzing my data is the Q4 Profit Plan. 

The Q4 Profit Plan helps you do all the things I just talked about and so much more. You’ll be walked through it step-by-step with very informative video lessons from a real-life blogger that makes six figures from her blog.

Find Your Content Gaps

When you are analyzing your data for the seasonal posts you already have you also want to pay attention to what gaps you have in your content. For example, if you have a food blog do you have a ton of desserts but no appetizers? Then you want to focus on making some new appetizers for your site.

If you aren’t sure what kind of content you need, look at other blogs in your niche. What types of seasonal content do they have? Don’t steal any of their posts but think if there are similar types of posts that you should have on your site.

The Q4 Profit Plan will also help you identify your content gaps and creating a plan for filling them.

Plan Your Sponsored Content

Brands are looking for ways to use the rest of their marketing budget during Q4 so why not have them spend some of it on your blog? Even if you’ve never done a sponsored post this is a great time to get started.

There are a few ways you can get sponsored content.

• Reach out to brands you want to work with.
• Sign up for sites that share sponsored opportunities.
• Brands reach out to you directly.

My favorite method of getting sponsored posts is reaching out to the brands on my own. This gives me a lot of flexibility and usually means I can ask for more money because they aren’t paying a middle man.

If you are new to this and need some help you need to read my ebook A Blogger’s Guide to Working with Brands. It’s been featured in the Genius Blogger’s Toolkit and has gotten great reviews from bloggers.

There are also some great websites to sign up for to look for sponsored opportunities. These are some of my favorites.

• AspireIQ
• Clever
• Social Fabric
• Massive Sway

You also may have brands email you asking about working with you. Be careful with this because a lot of people that reach out are spammy, looking for free advertising, or will ask you to do things that can hurt your blog.

Make Your Q4 Plan

Once you know what you need to do it’s important to put it into an actionable plan. A good way to do this is with a planner. You can use a notebook, a planner you already have, or the easiest option is to use my Blogging Holiday Planner.

The planner includes several pages that will help you organize your whole Q4 plan and maximize your profit. There are over 20 pages to help you plan your content, sponsored posts, social media, goal setting, and so much more.

The Blogging Holiday Planner is a digital download so you will get it right away. Just print off the pages you want to use and put them in a binder and you are ready to get planning.

And the planner is undated so you can use it year after year instead of having to buy a new planner each year!

Planning for Q4 Recap

These are additional tools I use all year but find especially helpful for Q4.