SEO
Niche Site Ideas
Finding the perfect niche site idea can seem like an impossible task when you’re starting out. So I decided to do the hard work for you and share 10 niche site ideas you can get going with immediately.
Let’s get started.
Hikers turn to Google for all kinds of inspiration. For example, if we search Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer for “best bikes in” and check the Matching terms report, we see hundreds of thousands of monthly searches for the best hikes in different locations.
You can easily create hundreds of blog posts to answer these informational questions and monetize with display ads.
But there are also hundreds of thousands of monthly searches for the best hiking gear where you can earn commissions from product reviews and recommendations.
For example:
Let’s filter this list for low-difficulty keywords. It looks like there are plenty of lucrative opportunities where competition isn’t too fierce; for instance, “best hiking gloves”:
There are also plenty of searches for reviews of individual products, such as Sealskinz socks:
From my limited research, there doesn’t seem to be a dominant and trusted review site in this niche. This presents an excellent opportunity for someone passionate about hiking products to build a go-to brand in this niche.
In terms of monetization, you can use Amazon Associates or work with some of the hiking brands themselves.
Many hiking brands have affiliate programs that pay decent commissions.
For example:
Survival is another topic jam-packed full of niche site ideas. It’s gained traction in recent years with the emergence of “preppers” who buy emergency supplies in large quantities.
If we type “survival products” into Google and look at the Google ads, we can get an indication of the average price point of products in the survival niche.
As we can see, survival encompasses everything from dehydrated food kits to power sources, bags, lighting, and survival tools.
As preppers buy products in bulk or as kits, the average conversion value per order is typically higher. This is excellent news for affiliate marketers, as it means higher commissions.
To get a sense of the opportunity in this niche, let’s put the seed keyword “survival” into Keywords Explorer, go to the Matching terms report, and add “gear” to the “Include” filter. This will show us keywords containing “survival” and “gear.”
You can see many angles you can take here if you want to specialize—everything from urban survival, to tactical survival, to military survival gear.
If we now update the “Include” filter to include “best,” we can hone in on some of the most lucrative affiliate keywords in this niche.
There are many keywords here, so it helps to refine this search further. From the above, we can see that people are searching for the “best survival food kits.” As “kits” is a word we have already encountered in the Google ads above, let’s dig into this keyword more in relation to our original seed keyword.
To do this, we’ll add “kit*” to our “Include” filter.
Sidenote.
Adding the * wildcard to the end of our keyword enables us to account for any plural variations of our keyword.
We can see that there are many angles to look at here, with over 700 keywords to target. The keyword list is now much more relevant.
It’s worth noting that “Amazon” appears in the top keywords in the above image, which shows a strong buying intent on that platform for this particular niche.
In terms of monetization, you can use Amazon Associates. But many specialist survival brands have affiliate programs with much higher percentages.
I have provided a few examples below:
Ebikes are a growing trend and typically have a higher retail price than road bikes. This makes them an attractive proposition for affiliate marketers, as commissions are high.
For example, if we look at the price of a Trek bike in the Google ads, we can see one that retails for almost $7,000. This would mean that you could get ~$280 commission at Trek’s 4% commission rate if someone bought this product through a link on your website.
Let’s take a closer look at this topic in Ahrefs to see what opportunities we can discover.
If we plug “ebike” into Keywords Explorer, we see that its search volume trend is on a healthy upward trajectory.
As there is a lot of search volume here, let’s refine our search further to uncover more keyword opportunities.
If a searcher wants to buy an ebike, they will likely search for the best ebikes, how two models stack up against each other, or related questions.
Let’s take a look at these scenarios in more detail.
To find the “best” searches for ebikes, go to the Matching terms report, set the Keyword Difficulty (KD) to 0–20, and set the “Include” filter to include “best.” This will allow us to view low-KD keywords that contain the word “best.”
OK, now let’s take a look at the vs. searches.
To do this in Keywords Explorer, enter a few ebike brands as seeds, go to the Matching terms report, and add “vs” to the “Include” filter.
You can see from the above that you can write many different comparison articles comparing various models.
Scrolling down the list, I can see there is also an excellent opportunity to write a comparison of Trek vs. Specialized ebikes.
You can scale this by replicating this “vs.” approach for other bike brands.
If we want to understand the questions people are searching for, we can use Keywords Explorer to identify these as well.
To do this, remove all filters and click on the toggle to select Questions.
In terms of monetization for the ebikes niche, you can use display ads or go directly to the manufacturers. For accessories, you can use Amazon Associates.
Examples of some of the higher percentage ebike affiliate programs are below:
- St3ike, 10% commission, 90-day cookie
- Trek, 4% commission, 30-day cookie
- Lectric, 3% commission, 30-day cookie
With 70% of U.S. households owning pets, this is a popular topic. And if you own a pet already, then this will be straightforward for you to write about.
Below is the current breakdown of pet ownership in the U.S., according to the 2021–2022 APPA National Pet Owners Survey.
Although it may seem like a good idea to write about cats and dogs, these topics have been covered many times before and will be extremely competitive.
Instead, I’d advise writing about lesser-known pets. For example, let’s take a look at “reptile,” which is further down the list.
If we put “reptile” into Keywords Explorer, go to the Matching terms report, and set the KD to 0–20, we can see some of the lowest competition keywords to target in this niche.
We can see that “reptile basics” has a monthly search volume of 5,000 and 0 KD, which will be an excellent opportunity for a niche site to capitalize on due to its very low KD.
Another keyword that stands out here is “reptile terrarium.” Although it has a higher KD than “reptile basics,” it has a higher Traffic Potential.
If we click on the keyword “reptile terrarium” and then scroll down to the bottom of the page, we can use the SERP overview in Keywords Explorer to see what the SERP looks like for this keyword.
Although many of the sites in the above list have high Domain Rating (DR) scores, we can see that the seventh result has a lower DR, which can mean it’s possible for a targeted niche site to rank for this keyword on the SERP.
Let’s return to the Matching terms report by clicking back in our browser. Let’s then add the word “best” to the “Include” filter to help us identify some commercial intent keywords for this topic.
By adding “best” as a qualifier, we can see people are searching for incubators, hygrometers, and other reptile accessories related to this topic—the best bit is these keywords also have low KD scores and decent Traffic Potential.
OK, let’s take this one step further now that we have established this is a workable niche.
Let’s imagine you created your site on a wider topic than just reptiles and went for the broader “exotic pets” niche. The advantage of this approach is that there will likely be more Traffic Potential and that we won’t limit our niche site to just reptiles.
If we add “exotic pets” as our seed keyword in Keywords Explorer and then go to the Matching terms report, we can see a bunch of opportunities here: roughly 9,000 potential keywords we can target.
Let’s take “legal exotic pets” from the above and dig deeper into this keyword phrase.
To do this, open a new instance of Keywords Explorer and type in “illegal pets, legal pets” in the search bar. Then click on the Matching terms report and add an “Include” filter with the word “in” in it.
Using this search method, we can see people are using Google to understand the legality of certain pets in different U.S. states.
As there are 50 states in the U.S., this gives you at least 50 pages of potential content on “exotic pets” to write about for your niche site.
In terms of monetization for the pets niche, you can use display ads and Amazon Associates. Or if you want, you can recommend vet care options, as they will typically have higher commission rates.
I have provided some examples of higher commissions within the pets niche below:
In 2021, the NGF reported that there were more golf courses nationwide than Starbucks or McDonald’s stores in the U.S. That’s a lot of golfers—meaning a lot of people are Googling golf-related questions.
Let’s look at how we can discover these opportunities within the golf niche using Ahrefs.
If we plug in the seed keyword “golf” into Keywords Explorer, go to the Matching terms report, and hit the Questions toggle, we can see just how many questions golfers are searching for—just over 230,000.
Answering these questions and running display ads is a perfectly legitimate way to build a niche site. But as there’s no way to answer them all, it’s probably best to narrow our search and focus on something more specific.
With 16,000 golf courses in the U.S., one potential option is to create a site about the best golf courses.
If we plug the seed keyword “golf course, golf courses” into Keywords Explorer, set the KD to 0–20, and add an “Include” filter containing the words “best” and “in,” we can see many low-KD searches that we can capitalize on.
It’s likely we’ll attract tens of thousands of monthly visitors to a niche site about this alone.
In terms of monetization, you can use Amazon Associates. But to get higher commissions, you should check out the programs below:
According to Statista, in the U.S. in 2021, approximately 1.85 million acoustic guitars were sold and 1.49 million electric guitars were sold. This makes the guitar niche attractive for affiliate marketers.
Let’s take a closer look at the guitar niche in Ahrefs.
If we enter our seed keyword “guitar” in Keywords Explorer and set the KD to 0–20, we can see there is much potential within this niche. In the results, there are millions of monthly searches for thousands of guitar-related keywords.
Let’s hone in on all the chord-related keywords, as there seem to be two examples in the top 10 with this particular keyword pattern.
We can isolate these keywords using an “Include” filter containing the word “chord.”
We can see there is a goldmine of low-competition informational keywords here. If you want to expand this idea further, you can look at Google’s People Also Ask questions to give you more inspiration to build out these topics.
For example:
But what if we want to write more commercially led content that compares one guitar to another?
We can do this in Keywords Explorer by changing our “Include” filter from “chord” to “vs,” which will allow us to see all the comparison queries people are searching for.
With this list, we can see there is a lot of potential to compare different guitar types against each other. Two of the examples in the above image also have 0 KD, meaning that these keywords can potentially be easy to rank for in Google.
In terms of monetization, you can use display ads or Amazon Associates, which pays a commission of ~3%. For higher commissions, you can try the following programs:
Pressure washers may not be the sexiest niche out there. But according to grandviewresearch.com, the global market is worth $1.8 billion.
Let’s start by using “pressure washer” as our seed keyword in Keywords Explorer and head to the Matching terms report.
We can see from the above that there are many brands within the top keywords.
Let’s try to isolate the brand comparison keywords.
If we add an “Include” filter in Keywords Explorer that contains “vs,” we can see that there are over a thousand keywords we can potentially target.
We can see that brands feature heavily in this list, so let’s change “vs” to “review” in our “Include” filter to isolate the top brand review keywords.
We can see that a lot of these keywords have low KD scores under 10 and also reasonable search volumes.
Now let’s say we want to take a closer look at the informational searches within this niche.
The quickest way to do this is to remove the “Include” filter and click on Questions.
Once we have done this, let’s say we want to understand how many questions in this niche have a featured snippet in Google. We can do this by clicking the “SERP features” dropdown, selecting Featured Snippet, and clicking Apply.
For monetization in this niche, you can use Amazon Associates. For higher commission options, you can try these:
With vinyl record sales now surpassing CD sales and over $1 billion of vinyl records sold in the U.S. in 2021, it seems that the vinyl record has once again refused to die.
According to the data from the RIAA, the vinyl records market is set to keep increasing in value exponentially.
Let’s use Keywords Explorer to find turntable keyword phrases that include the word “best” in them.
To do this, type “turntable” into the search bar and add the word “best” to the “Include” filter.
The keyword “best turntable under 500” seems to indicate that people are probably searching for turntables “under” many different price points.
To see whether this is true, let’s add “under” to our “Include” filter.
It’s clear from the above that people are searching for turntables under many different price points. We can also see that these keywords have KD scores of 6 or under. This presents lots of opportunities to rank for “best” keywords at different price points within this niche.
In terms of monetization, you can use Amazon Associates, or you can use some higher percentage affiliate programs:
Home gym equipment became incredibly popular during the pandemic. And its popularity has exploded since then.
According to Statista, the wholesale fitness equipment market is worth an incredible $6.42 billion.
Let’s identify some keyword opportunities for this niche in Keywords Explorer.
Let’s start by using “home gym” as our seed keyword.
Using this search, we can see over 38,000 potential keywords to target here.
Let’s hone in on the “best” keyword, as it appears twice in our list. We can do this by adding the word “best” as an “Include” filter.
We can now see the emergence of a “best X for Y” pattern, so let’s add a second “Include” filter containing the word “for” to isolate these searches further.
From these two “Include” filters, we now have a list of over a thousand keywords we can use as inspiration for articles on our home gym niche site.
We have now successfully isolated the “best X for home gym” searches. Let’s take a different approach and look at one of the trends in the above list in more detail.
We can see in the screenshots above that the keyword “machine” is a recurring theme with high search volume.
The average price of a gym machine is likely to be higher than some standard gym equipment, so it can potentially bring in higher affiliate commissions.
Let’s type in a list of all the gym machines we can think of, copy and paste them into Keywords Explorer, go to the Matching terms report, and add “best” to the “Include” filter.
If we look at the general pattern of searches above, we can see two key exceptions that stand out from the general pattern of searches: “best smith machine exercises” and “best smith machine workouts.” These are both informational searches where people are looking for the best ways to use the Smith machine.
Let’s dig into these searches a bit further using Keywords Explorer.
To do this, we can add “exercise*, workout*” as an “Include” filter. (Remember that adding the asterisks here allows us to search for plural and non-plural variations simultaneously.)
Now we can see that we have over a thousand keywords that target mainly informational queries with low-KD scores.
We can also see that the Smith machine is a focus area for these types of search queries, so building out a substantial section on this topic in your niche site is probably a good idea.
With the home gym niche, you can monetize it by recommended products you have reviewed. Or you can recommend online personal trainers or simply use display ads.
You can also use Amazon Associates. But if you want something with a higher commission, you may want to check out the following programs:
According to a report from McKinsey, 87% of employed Americans would work flexibly if they could and 58% said they work remotely part of the time.
This means that 92 million people in the U.S. will require supplies to work from home. That’s a big market that is hard to ignore.
Let’s say you created a niche site around your favorite work-from-home products. What would you review? Wireless headsets? Laptops?
Let’s look at the opportunity for these types of products in Keywords Explorer.
Start by entering “wfh, work from home, working from home” in the search bar. Then go to the Matching terms report and add an “Include” filter containing the word “best.”
We can see from the above that the results aren’t 100% focused on products. So to refine the results further, we can hone in on product searches by adding “for” to the “Include” filter.
Once we have done this, we can get a good idea of what products people want when working from home: headsets/headphones, computers/laptops, and monitors.
Using these “Include” filters in Ahrefs, we can quickly locate all the “best X for Y” keywords. These keywords are likely a great starting point for a “working from home” themed website.
Let’s dig into the keyword “headphones” a bit more and look at all the Questions surrounding this topic.
We can see that there is a huge opportunity to create content around how to “pair” different brands of wireless headphones.
Let’s add an “Include” filter containing the word “pair” to isolate phrases that include this keyword.
We can see a lot of low-KD opportunities and over 7,000 keywords to create content around this single topic.
This type of content can be helpful for someone who is working from home for the first time and is about to join a remote meeting or someone who has just bought a new set of wireless headphones.
This niche can be monetized simply through display ads and Amazon Affiliates. I have provided a few other affiliate program examples below, which you can use to monetize your site.
For example:
- Logitech, 5–10% commission, 30-day cookie
- Razer, 3–10% commission, 30-day cookie
- HP, 1% commission, 30-day cookie
Final thoughts
Finding a great niche isn’t as hard as it seems.
Writing about a topic you love can definitely make things easier. But you should also analyze the data carefully before you choose your niche—this is where Ahrefs can really help.
With monetization, you don’t have to stick to just Amazon Associates, AdSense, or Ezoic—but these can be good places to start. Going directly to the manufacturers will almost always earn you a higher commission rate.
I’ve outlined 10 ideas here, but there are countless other ones out there. I hope this list provides inspiration for your next niche site.
Got more questions? Ping me on Twitter. 🙂
SEO
Marketing Calendar 2024 With Template To Plan Your Content
Setting yourself and your organization up for successful marketing means understanding the interesting dates, holidays, and events throughout the year that you can leverage for your brand.
Pulling that information together takes time and effort, so we’ve done the legwork for you.
Our complete marketing calendar for 2024 with a template gives you all the information you need to plan your content.
You can customize this easily referenceable table and pull out the relevant dates for your business to create your own 2024 marketing calendar.
For planning content and social media campaigns, using a marketing calendar gives you insights and opportunities to tie your content into well-known events in engaging ways.
These range from big sporting events to awareness months that you can plan content around, to public holidays so you can leverage them for engagement.
Free Marketing Calendar And Template For 2024
Below, we have listed some of the major holiday highlights for 2024. We have also compiled a free spreadsheet that lists many obscure awareness days to help you plan content in any niche.
The full 2024 marketing calendar and template are available at the end of the article, with a breakdown of each month.
This calendar focuses mainly on the U.S. and Canada, with some major international and religious holidays included.
Your 2024 Holiday Marketing Calendar
January
January is a time of resolutions and fresh starts, with many picking a goal for the year or looking to make a change.
It can be a slow start, given that many people are still recovering from the end of last year, but that gives you time to plan your calendar and ease into a new year of content.
There are plenty of broad activities to lean into, like Veganuary and National Hobby Month, to connect with audience lifestyles.
Events in January always have all eyes on them, too, like the Golden Globes and Winter X Games, so content around them can kickstart your 2024 engagement.
Monthly Observances
- International Creativity Month
- National Blood Donor Month
- National Braille Literacy Month
- National Hobby Month
- Dry January
- Veganuary
Weekly Observances
- January 1-7 – New Year’s Resolutions Week
- January 1-7 – Celebration of Life Week
- January 1-7 – Diet Resolution Week
- January 8-14 – Home Office and Security Week
Days
- January 1 – New Year’s Day
- January 1 – Mexican Independence Day
- January 1 – Global Family Day
- January 2 – National Science Fiction Day
- January 4 – World Braille Day
- January 6 – Epiphany
- January 7 – Orthodox Christmas
- January 10 – Golden Globes
- January 13 – Korean American Day
- January 13 – Stephen Foster Memorial Day
- January 14 – Orthodox New Year
- January 14 – Ratification Day
- January 15 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- January 15 – Civil Rights Day
- January 17 – Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day
- January 17 – Benjamin Franklin Day
- January 18-28 – Sundance Film Festival
- January 20 – World Religion Day
- January 24 – Tu BiShvat
- January 26-29 – Winter X Games
- January 27 – International Holocaust Remembrance Day
- January 28 – Data Privacy Day
Popular Hashtags for January:
- #NewYearsDay
- #ScienceFictionDay
- #NationalTriviaDay
- #NationalBirdDay
- #NationalStickerDay
- #GetToKnowYourCustomersDay
- #CheeseLoversDay
- #MLKDay
- #NationalHuggingDay
- #PieDay
- #NationalComplimentDay
- #PrivacyAware
February
Despite being the shortest month, February is full of interesting events you can leverage for your marketing campaigns.
The colder days can leave people looking for things to get involved with from the comfort of their homes. So, make sure your content is working in line with popular days to attract people to your organization’s content.
Spread the love on Valentine’s Day, celebrate the Lunar New Year, and embrace Black History Month as we enjoy a slightly longer February with 2024’s Leap Year.
Monthly Observances
- Black History Month
- American Heart Month
- National Heart Month
- National Weddings Month
- National Cancer Prevention Month
- National Library Lovers Month
- Celebration of Chocolate Month
Weekly Observances
- February 7-13 – African Heritage and Health Week
- February 9-14 – New York Fashion Week
- February 11-17 – Freelance Writers Appreciation Week
- February 11-17 – International Flirting Week
- February 11-17 – Random Acts of Kindness Week
- February 18-24 – Engineers’ Week
- February 19-25 – National Pancake Week
- February 28-March 5 – National Eating Disorders Awareness Week
Days
- February 1 – First Day of Black History Month
- February 1 – National Freedom Day
- February 1 – National Change Your Password Day
- February 2 – Groundhog Day
- February 4 – Rosa Parks Day
- February 4 – World Cancer Day
- February 4 – The Grammy Awards
- February 7 – National Girls and Women in Sports Day
- February 10 – Lunar New Year
- February 11 – Super Bowl Sunday
- February 11 – International Day of Women and Girls in Science
- February 12 – Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday
- February 12 – Red Hand Day
- February 12 – Georgia Day
- February 12 – Darwin Day
- February 13 – Mardi Gras
- February 13 – International Pancake Day
- February 14 – Valentine’s Day
- February 14 – Ash Wednesday
- February 14 – Arizona State Day
- February 15 – Susan B. Anthony’s Birthday
- February 18 – NBA All-Stars
- February 18 – Daytona 500
- February 19 – Presidents’ Day
- February 22 – George Washington’s Birthday
- February 29 – Leap Day
Popular Hashtags for February
- #GroundhogDay
- #WorldCancerDay
- #NationalWeatherpersonsDay
- #SendACardToAFriendDay
- #BoyScoutsDay
- #NationalPizzaDay
- #ValentinesDay
- #RandomActsOfKindnessDay
- #PresidentsDay
- #LoveYourPetDay
March
March marks the beginning of spring, and the days start to get longer. Whether March Madness turns up the heat or Easter is on its way, there are plenty of exciting events to get your content involved with.
Some of the monthly observances, such as Women’s History Month or The Great American Cleanup, can serve as great causes for regular engagement this month.
Monthly Observances
- Women’s History Month
- Nutrition Month
- Music in Our Schools Month
- Craft Month
- American Red Cross Month
- The Great American Cleanup
- Ramadan begins on March 10
Weekly Observances
- March 10-16 – Girl Scout Week
- March 10-16 – National Sleep Awareness Week
- March 17-23 – National Agriculture Week
- March 24-30 – National Cleaning Week
Days
- March 1 – Employee Appreciation Day
- March 1 – Zero Discrimination Day
- March 1 – Global Unplugging Day
- March 3 – World Wildlife Day
- March 3 – National Anthem Day
- March 4 – International HPV Awareness Day
- March 8 – International Women’s Day
- March 10 – Daylight Savings
- March 10 – Ramadan
- March 12 – 96th Academy Awards Ceremony
- March 14 – Pi Day
- March 15 – The Ides of March
- March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day
- March 17 – NCAA March Madness
- March 17 – World Sleep Day
- March 18 – Global Recycling Day
- March 19 – Nowruz
- March 19 – Spring Equinox
- March 22 – World Water Day
- March 24 – Palm Sunday
- March 24 – Purim
- March 26 – Epilepsy Awareness Day
- March 27 – World Theatre Day
- March 28 – MLB Opening Day
- March 28 – Maundy Thursday
- March 29 – Good Friday
- March 30 – Holy Saturday
- March 31 – Easter Sunday
Popular Hashtags for March
- #PeanutButterLoversDay
- #EmployeeAppreciationDay
- #ReadAcrossAmerica
- #DrSeuss
- #WorldWildlifeDay
- #NationalGrammarDay
- #BeBoldForChange
- #DaylightSavings
- #PiDay
- #StPatricksDay
- #FirstDayofSpring
- #WorldWaterDay
- #NationalPuppyDay
- #PurpleDay
- #NationalDoctorsDay
- #EarthHour
April
April is probably best known for April Fools’ Day, and a chance to get creative with parody and spoof content for your calendar that can make your customers smile.
Earth Month also means you can make more eco-friendly posts about your organization’s commitment to reducing its impact on the planet.
You also might want to get your cape out of storage on April 28th for National Superhero Day.
Monthly Observances
- Earth Month
- National Autism Awareness Month
- Parkinson’s Awareness Month
- Celebrate Diversity Month
- Stress Awareness Month
- Ramadan ends on April 8
Weekly Observances
- April 15-21 – Animal Cruelty/Human Violence Awareness Week
- April 21-27 – National Volunteer Week
- April 21-27 – Administrative Professionals Week
- April 22-26 – Every Kid Healthy Week
Days
- April 1 – April Fool’s Day
- April 1 – Easter Monday
- April 2 – World Autism Awareness Day
- April 2 – International Children’s Book Day
- April 5 – Lailat al-Qadr
- April 6 – National Walking Day
- April 7 – National Beer Day
- April 7 – World Health Day
- April 8 – Total Solar Eclipse
- April 10 – Eid-Al-Fitr
- April 11-14 – Masters Tournament PGA
- April 11 – National Pet Day
- April 12-21 – Coachella Music Festival
- April 13 – Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday
- April 13-15 – Songkran
- April 15 – American Sign Language Day
- April 15 – Tax Day
- April 15 – Boston Marathon
- April 15 – Patriots’ Day
- April 16 – Emancipation Day
- April 21 – World Creativity and Innovation Day
- April 22 – Earth Day
- April 22 – Passover starts
- April 26 – Arbor Day
- April 27 – World Design Day
- April 28 – National Superhero Day
- April 30 – National Honesty Day
- April 30 – Passover ends
Popular Hashtags For April:
- #AprilFools
- #WAAD
- #FindARainbowDay
- #NationalWalkingDay
- #LetsTalk
- #EqualPayDay
- #TaxDay
- #NH5D
- #NationalLookAlikeDay
- #AdministrativeProfessionalsDay
- #DenimDay
- #EndMalariaForGood
- #COUNTONME
- #ArborDay
- #NationalHonestyDay
- #AdoptAShelterPetDay
May
May brings a lot of variety with it as there are plenty of good causes to raise awareness for, plus major sporting events and unique celebrations you can join in with.
Cinco de Mayo, the Kentucky Derby, and Memorial Day are just a few examples of events that will have lots of people paying attention and can make for great marketing themes.
Monthly Observances
- ALS Awareness
- Asthma Awareness
- Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
- Jewish American Heritage Month
- National Celiac Disease Awareness Month
- Clean Air Month
- Better Sleep Month
- Lupus Awareness Month
Weekly Observances
- May 5-11 – National Pet Week
- May 19-25 – National Travel & Tourism Week
- May 5-11 – Drinking Water Week
- May 6-12 – Nurse’s Week
- May 12-18 – Food Allergy Awareness Week
Days
- May 1 – May Day
- May 1 – Law Day
- May 1 – Lei Day
- May 2 – World Password Day
- May 4 – Star Wars Day
- May 4 – International Firefighters Day
- May 4 – Kentucky Derby
- May 5 – Cinco De Mayo
- May 5-10 – French Open
- May 6 – National Nurses Day
- May 6 – Yom HaShoah
- May 8 – World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day
- May 10 – World Lupus Day
- May 11 – World Fair Trade Day
- May 12 – Mother’s Day
- May 13-19 – PGA Championship
- May 14 – Yom Ha’atzmaut
- May 15 – International Day of Families
- May 17 – NASCAR Day
- May 17 – Malcolm X Day
- May 17 – Internet Day
- May 19 – HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
- May 20 – World Bee Day
- May 20 – Victoria Day (Canada)
- May 21 – World Meditation Day
- May 25 – Geek Pride Day
- May 26 – Trinity Sunday
- May 26 – Indianapolis 500
- May 27 – Memorial Day
- May 28 – World Hunger Day
- May 29 – Memorial Day
Popular Hashtags For May:
- #RedNoseDay
- #MayDay
- #WorldPasswordDay
- #StarWarsDay & #Maythe4thBeWithYou
- #InternationalFirefightersDay
- #CincoDeMayo
- #MothersDay
- #BTWD
- #MemorialDay & #MDW
June
Once June has arrived, it’s finally starting to feel like summer. Everyone wants to make the most of the sunshine, and the positive energies are flowing.
Given that June also marks Great Outdoors Month, this is a great opportunity to make your brand a must-have companion for planning a beachside vacation or hosting a cookout.
You can also show your support for LGBTQ+ Pride, Flag Day, and Father’s Day, along with all the other events listed here.
Monthly Observances
- LGBTQ Pride Month
- Caribbean-American Heritage Month
- Great Outdoors Month
- Men’s Health Month
- National Safety Month
- National Zoo and Aquarium Month
Weekly Observances
- June 2-8 – National Garden Week
- June 2-8 – National Headache Awareness Week
- June 10-16 – National Men’s Health Week
- June 16-22 – National Roller Coaster Week
Days
- June 1 – Global Parents Day
- June 5 – Hot Air Balloon Day
- June 5 – World Environment Day
- June 6 – D-Day
- June 8 – Belmont Stakes
- June 8 – World Oceans Day
- June 8 – National Best Friends Day
- June 9 – Donald Duck Day
- June 10 – Chinese Dragon Boat Festival
- June 11 – Kamehameha Day
- June 12 – Shavuot
- June 13-16 – Bonnaroo Music Festival
- June 14 – Flag Day
- June 14 – Flag Day
- June 16 – Father’s Day
- June 16 – Tony Awards
- June 13-16 – U.S. Open PGA
- June 19 – Juneteenth
- June 20 – Summer Solstice
- June 23 – International Widows Day
- June 29 – July 21 – Tour de France
- June 30 – International Asteroid Day
Popular Hashtags For June:
- #NationalDonutDay
- #FathersDay
- #NationalSelfieDay
- #TakeYourDogToWorkDay
- #HandshakeDay
- #SMDay
July
July presents lots of opportunities for savvy marketers, from the 4th of July to the International Day of Friendship.
As we enter the summer slow-down period, there’s lots to celebrate that can help to feed your social media content to keep customers engaged.
So celebrate your independence, indulge in a little ice cream, and bring people together with one of the many events in July.
Monthly Observances
- Family Golf Month
- Ice Cream Month
- National Parks and Recreation Month
- National Picnic Month
- National Independent Retailer Month
- National Blueberry Month
Weekly Observances
- July 15-21 – Capture the Sunset Week
Days
- July 1 – International Joke Day
- July 1-11 – Wimbledon
- July 2 – World UFO Day
- July 4 – Independence Day
- July 6 – International Kissing Day
- July 7 – World Chocolate Day
- July 8 – National Video Games Day
- July 11 – World Population Day
- July 12 – Pecan Pie Day
- July 16 – Moon Landing Anniversary
- July 16 – MLB All-Star Game
- July 17 – World Emoji Day
- July 17 – Ashura
- July 18 – Nelson Mandela International Day
- July 20 – International Chess Day
- July 20 – National Moon Day
- July 21 – National Junk Food Day
- July 24 – Amelia Earhart Day
- July 26 – Aunt and Uncle Day
- July 26 – August 11 – Summer Olympics
- July 28-30 – Summer X Games
- July 28 – Parents’ Day
- July 28 – World Hepatitis Day
- July 30 – International Day of Friendship
- July 31 – World Ranger Day
Popular Hashtags For July:
- #NationalPostalWorkerDay
- #WorldUFODay
- #WorldEmojiDay
- #DayOfFriendship
August
We’ve hit the hottest days by August as back-to-school looms, and we welcome the return of football.
While many are topping up their tans and making the most of the final Summer days, August still provides lots of opportunities to align your content with wider events.
Make sure you’re using your marketing calendar to the fullest extent to post any sunny seasonal content promptly before fall arrives.
Monthly Observances
- Back to School Month
- National Breastfeeding Month
- Family Fun Month
- Peach Month
Weekly Observances
- August 1-7 – International Clown Week
- August 4-10 – National Farmers’ Market Week
- August 25-31 – Be Kind to Humankind Week
Days
- August 1 – National Girlfriends Day
- August 1 – NFL Hall of Fame Game & Preseason
- August 2 – International Beer Day
- August 4 – National Friendship Day
- August 7 – Purple Heart Day
- August 8 – International Cat Day
- August 9 – Book Lover’s Day
- August 11 – National Son and Daughter Day
- August 12 – Victory Day
- August 13 – Left Hander’s Day
- August 15 – Assumption of Mary
- August 17 – National Honey Bee Day
- August 19 – World Humanitarian Day
- August 19 – Raksha Bandhan
- August 20 – National Radio Day
- August 21 – Senior Citizens Day
- August 26 – Women’s Equality Day
- August 30 – Frankenstein Day
- August 30 – National Beach Day
Popular Hashtags For August:
- #InternationalCatDay
- #NationalBookLoversDay
- #WorldElephantDay
- #LefthandersDay
- #WorldPhotoDay
- #WorldHumanitarianDay
- #NationalLemonadeDay
- #NationalDogDay
- #WomensEqualityDay
September
As fall begins, some of the bigger events happening in September are Hispanic Heritage Month, Grandparents Day, and, of course, Labor Day.
There are also plenty of other events to inspire you, from Oktoberfest to National Yoga Month. Plus, a National Coffee Day for those who struggle to start their day without a caffeine fix.
Monthly Observances
- Wilderness Month
- National Food Safety Education Month
- National Yoga Month
- Whole Grains Month
- Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15)
Weekly Observances
- September 8-14 – National Suicide Prevention Week
- September 15-21 – National Indoor Plant Week
- September 16-22 – Pollution Prevention Week
- September 24-30 – National Dog Week
Days
- September 2 – VJ Day
- September 2 – Labor Day
- September 4 – National Wildlife Day
- September 5 – International Day of Charity
- September 6 – National Fight Procrastination Day
- September 8 – Pardon Day
- September 8 – National Grandparents Day
- September 11 – 9/11
- September 11 – Patriot Day
- September 12 – Video Games Day
- September 13 – Uncle Sam Day
- September 15 – Greenpeace Day
- September 17 – Constitution Day
- September 21 – Oktoberfest Begins
- September 21 – International Day of Peace
- September 22 – World Car-Free Day
- September 22 – September Equinox
- September 24 – World Bollywood Day
- September 24–29 – Presidents Cup PGA
- September 27 – Native American Day
- September 27 – World Tourism Day
- September 29 – National Coffee Day (US)
- September 29 – Confucius Day
- September 29 – World Heart Day
Popular Hashtags For September:
- #LaborDay
- #NationalWildlifeDay
- #CharityDay
- #ReadABookDay
- #911Day
- #NationalVideoGamesDay
- #TalkLikeAPirateDay
- #PeaceDay
- #CarFreeDay
- #WorldRabiesDay
- #GoodNeighborDay
- #InternationalPodcastDay
October
It’s that time of year when pumpkin spice lattes roll around again.
While October is known as the spooky season to many, there’s much more to this month than just Halloween – there’s Teacher’s Day, World Mental Health Day, and Spirit Day, to name a few, around which your organization can look to create content.
Monthly Observances
- Breast Cancer Awareness Month
- Bully Prevention Month
- Halloween Safety Month
- Financial Planning Month
- National Pizza Month
Weekly Observances
- October 8-14 – Fire Prevention Week
- October 13-19 – Earth Science Week
- October 20-26 – National Business Women’s Week
Days
- October 1 – International Coffee Day
- October 1 – World Vegetarian Day
- October 3 – National Techies Day
- October 5 – World Teacher’s Day
- October 6 – Oktoberfest Ends
- October 7 – Child Health Day
- October 10 – World Mental Health Day
- October 11 – National Coming Out Day
- October 12 – Yom Kippur
- October 14 – Indigenous Peoples’ Day
- October 14 – Columbus Day
- October 14 – Thanksgiving Day (Canada)
- October 16 – World Food Day
- October 19 – Sweetest Day
- October 20 – Spirit Day (Anti-bullying)
- October 22 – Make a Difference Day
- October 24 – United Nations Day
- October 30 – Mischief Night
- October 31 – Halloween
Popular Hashtags For October:
- #InternationalCoffeeDay
- #TechiesDay
- #NationalTacoDay
- #WorldSmileDay
- #WorldTeachersDay
- #WorldHabitatDay
- #WorldMentalHealthDay
- #BossesDay
- #UNDay
- #ChecklistDay
- #Halloween
November
During the month in which we all give thanks, there is also a wide range of causes you can help out with or raise awareness for, like Movember and America Recycles Day.
You should also mark your marketing calendar for arguably the biggest sales events of the year – Black Friday and Cyber Monday (Dec. 2) – which are sure to be on everyone’s radar.
Monthly Observances
- Native American Heritage Month
- Movember
- World Vegan Month
- Novel Writing Month
- National Gratitude Month
Weekly Observances
- November 11-16 – World Kindness Week (second week: Monday – Sunday)
- November 18-22 – American Education Week
- November 18-24 – Game and Puzzle Week
Days
- November 1 – Day of the Dead/Día de los Muertos
- November 1 – All Saint’s Day
- November 1 – World Vegan Day
- November 2 – Melbourne Cup
- November 3 – Daylight Savings Time Ends
- November 5 – Election Day
- November 8 – STEM Day
- November 9 – World Freedom Day
- November 10 – Marine Corps Birthday
- November 11 – Veterans Day
- November 13 – World Kindness Day
- November 14 – World Diabetes Day
- November 15 – National Entrepreneurs Day
- November 24 – Evolution Day
- November 28 – Thanksgiving Day
- November 29 – Native American Heritage Day
- November 29 – Black Friday
Popular Hashtags For November:
- #WorldVeganDay
- #NationalSandwichDay
- #DaylightSavings
- #CappuccinoDay
- #STEMDay
- #VeteransDay
- #WKD
- #WDD
- #BeRecycled
- #EntrepreneursDay
- #Thanksgiving
- #ShopSmall
December
December is here, and the end of the year is in sight.
Although 2025 is right around the corner, and you might want to start planning your content calendar for next year, don’t neglect your content in the run-up to the holidays.
Send your year off in style with marketing campaigns dedicated to events like Nobel Prize Day, Rosa Parks Day, Green Monday, and more.
You can even do a content wrap-up of your best moments from the year – and make sure to get your 2025 marketing calendar sorted early before the post-Christmas wind-down.
Monthly Observances
- Human Rights Month
- Operation Santa Paws
- Safe Toys and Gifts Month
- World Food Service Safety Month
Weekly Observances
- December 9-15 – Human Rights Week
- December 25 – January 2 – Hanukkah (Chanukah)
- December 26 – January 1 – Kwanzaa
Days
- December 1 – World AIDS Day
- December 1 – Rosa Parks Day
- December 2 – Cyber Monday
- December 3 – International Day of Persons with Disabilities
- December 6 – St. Nicholas Day
- December 7 – Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day
- December 7 – National Letter Writing Day
- December 8 – Feast of the Immaculate Conception
- December 9 – Green Monday
- December 10 – Nobel Prize Day
- December 10 – Human Rights Day
- December 11 – UNICEF Anniversary
- December 15 – Bill of Rights Day
- December 18 – National Twin Day
- December 21 – Winter Solstice
- December 22 – Forefathers Day
- December 23 – Festivus
- December 24 – Christmas Eve
- December 25 – Christmas Day
- December 25 – Hanukkah
- December 26 – Kwanzaa
- December 26 – Boxing Day
- December 31 – New Year’s Eve
Popular Hashtags For December:
- #IDPWD
- #NationalCookieDay
- #NobelPrize
- #WinterSolstice
- #NYE
The Complete Marketing Calendar And Template To Plan 2024
You can find the link to our complete marketing calendar and template for 2024 right here.
By having a content plan set out months in advance, you can rest assured that you’ll have great ideas to work with throughout the year.
And just because you have a plan doesn’t mean you can’t adapt if something interesting happens later in the year.
Simply rearrange your calendar and work your trending content around key dates.
Keep track of what ideas work throughout the year and use them to help guide your marketing calendar for 2025, so you can double down on successful content ideas.
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
SEO
Content Pruning: Why It Works, and How to Do It
Content pruning sounds pretty appealing: delete a ton of content and see your organic traffic improve. But pruning has risks (like deleting useful pages and useful backlinks), and benefits are not guaranteed: So how does pruning actually work? And when…
SEO
8 Free SEO Reporting Tools
There’s no shortage of SEO reporting tools to choose from—but what are the core tools you need to put together an SEO report?
In this article, I’ll share eight of my favorite SEO reporting tools to help you create a comprehensive SEO report for free.
Price: Free
Google Search Console, often called GSC, is one of the most widely used tools to track important SEO metrics from Google Search.
Most common reporting use case
GSC has a ton of data to dive into, but the main performance indicator SEOs look at first in GSC is Clicks on the main Overview dashboard.
As the data is from Google, SEOs consider it to be a good barometer for tracking organic search performance. As well as clicks data, you can also track the following from the Performance report:
- Total Impressions
- Average CTR
- Average Position
Tip
But for most SEO reporting, GSC clicks data is exported into a spreadsheet and turned into a chart to visualize year-over-year performance.
Favorite feature
One of my favorite reports in GSC is the Indexing report. It’s useful for SEO reporting because you can share the indexed to non-indexed pages ratio in your SEO report.
If the website has a lot of non-indexed pages, then it’s worth reviewing the pages to understand why they haven’t been indexed.
Price: Free
Google Looker Studio (GLS), previously known as Google Data Studio (GDS), is a free tool that helps visualize data in shareable dashboards.
Most common reporting use case
Dashboards are an important part of SEO reporting, and GLS allows you to get a total view of search performance from multiple sources through its integrations.
Out of the box, GLS allows you to connect to many different data sources.
Such as:
- Marketing products – Google Ads, Google Analytics, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360
- Consumer products – Google Sheets, YouTube, and Google Search Console
- Databases – BigQuery, MySQL, and PostgreSQL
- Social media platforms – Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter
- Files – CSV file upload and Google Cloud Storage
Sidenote.
If you don’t have the time to create your own report manually, Ahrefs has three Google Looker Studio connectors that can help you create automated SEO reporting for any website in a few clicks
Here’s what a dashboard in GLS looks like:
With this type of dashboard, you share reports that are easy to understand with clients or other stakeholders.
Favorite feature
The ability to blend and filter data from different sources, like GA and GSC, means you can get a customized overview of your total search performance, tailored to your website.
Price: Free for 500 URLs
Screaming Frog is a website crawler that helps you audit your website.
Screaming Frog’s free version of its crawler is perfect if you want to run a quick audit on a bunch of URLs. The free version is limited to 500 URLs—making it ideal for crawling smaller websites.
Most common reporting use case
When it comes to reporting, the Reports menu in Screaming Frog SEO Spider has a wealth of information you can look over that covers all the technical aspects of your website, such as analyzing, redirects, canonicals, pagination, hreflang, structured data, and more.
Once you’ve crawled your site, it’s just a matter of downloading the reports you need and working out the main issues to summarize in your SEO report.
Favorite feature
Screaming Frog can pull in data from other tools, including Ahrefs, using APIs.
If you already had access to a few SEO tools’ APIs, you could pull data from all of them directly into Screaming Frog. This is useful if you want to combine crawl data with performance data or other 3rd party tools.
Even if you’ve never configured an API, connecting other tools to Screaming Frog is straightforward.
Price: Free
Ahrefs has a large selection of free SEO tools to help you at every stage of your SEO campaign, and many of these can be used to provide insights for your SEO reporting.
For example, you could use our:
Most common reporting use case
One of our most popular free SEO tools is Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT), which you can use for your SEO reporting.
With AWT, you can:
- Monitor your SEO health over time by setting up scheduled SEO audits
- See the performance of your website
- Check all known backlinks for your website
Favorite feature
Of all the Ahrefs free tools, my favorite is AWT. Within it, site auditing is my favorite feature—once you’ve set it up, it’s a completely hands-free way to keep track of your website’s technical performance and monitor its health.
If you already have access to Google Search Console, it’s a no-brainer to set up a free AWT account and schedule a technical crawl of your website(s).
Price: Free
Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar is a free Chrome and Firefox extension useful for diagnosing on-page technical issues and performing quick spot checks on your website’s pages.
Most common reporting use case
For SEO reporting, it’s useful to run an on-page check on your website’s top pages to ensure there aren’t any serious on-page issues.
With the free version, you get the following features:
- On-page SEO report
- Redirect tracer with HTTP Headers
- Outgoing links report with link highlighter and broken link checker
- SERP positions
- Country changer for SERP
The SEO toolbar is excellent for spot-checking issues with pages on your website. If you are not confident with inspecting the code, it can also give you valuable pointers on what elements you need to include on your pages to make them search-friendly.
If anything is wrong with the page, the toolbar highlights it, with red indicating a critical issue.
Favorite feature
The section I use the most frequently in the SEO toolbar is the Indexability tab. In this section, you can see whether the page can be crawled and indexed by Google.
Although you can do this by inspecting the code manually, using the toolbar is much faster.
Price: Free
Like GSC, Google Analytics is another tool you can use to track the performance of your website, tracking sessions and conversions and much more on your website.
Most common reporting use case
GA gives you a total view of website traffic from several different sources, such as direct, social, organic, paid traffic, and more.
Favorite feature
You can create and track up to 300 events and 30 conversions with GA4. Previously, with universal analytics, you could only track 20 conversions. This makes conversion and event tracking easier within GA4.
Price: Free
Google Slides is Google’s version of Microsoft PowerPoint. If you don’t have a dashboard set up to report on your SEO performance, the next best thing is to assemble a slide deck.
Many SEO agencies present their report through dashboard insights and PowerPoint presentations. However, if you don’t have access to PowerPoint, then Google Slides is an excellent (free) alternative.
Most common reporting use cases
The most common use of Google Slides is to create a monthly SEO report. If you don’t know what to include in a monthly report, use our SEO report template.
Favorite feature
One of my favorite features is the ability to share your presentation on a video chat directly from Google Slides. You can do this by clicking the camera icon in the top right.
This is useful if you are working with remote clients and makes sharing your reports easy.
Price: Free
Google Trends allows you to view a keyword’s popularity over time in any country. The data shown is the relative popularity ratio scaled from 0-100, not the direct volume of search queries.
Most common reporting use cases
Google Trends is useful for showing how the popularity of certain searches can increase or decrease over time. If you work with a website that often has trending products, services, or news, it can be useful to illustrate this visually in your SEO report.
Google Trends makes it easy to spot seasonal trends for product categories. For example, people want to buy BBQs when the weather is sunny.
Using Google Trends, we can see that peak demand for BBQs usually happens in June-July every year.
Using this data across the last five years, we could be fairly sure when the BBQ season would start and end.
Favorite feature
Comparing two or more search terms against each other over time is one of my favorite uses of Google Trends, as it can be used to tell its own story.
Embellishing your report with trends data allows you to gain further insights into market trends.
You can even dig into trends at a regional level if you need to.
Final thoughts
These free tools will help you put together the foundations for a well-rounded SEO report.
The tools you use for SEO reporting don’t always have to be expensive—even large companies use many of the free tools mentioned to create insights for their client’s SEO reports.
Got more questions? Ping me on X 🙂
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