SEO
How to Create a Niche Site That Earns 4 Figures a Month in 6 Easy Steps
Niche sites have significant earning potential. So much so that they can eventually replace your regular “9 to 5.” But to reach that point, you need to know how to successfully get one off the ground.
I’ve been an SEO consultant for the past four years and have worked specifically with niche site owners. They include people just starting out.
I’ve worked with clients to build sites from scratch. They went on to start earning their first commissions within 60 days and four-figure monthly sums within 12 months.
In this guide, I’m going to share my step-by-step process for successfully building a niche site that earns over $1,000 a month within the first 12 months.
But first, let’s get some of the basics down:
A niche site is any website that caters to a specific audience or topic. It can be about anything: health, business, relationships, travel, food, fashion, animals, or the more obscure.
There are all kinds of niche sites, and covering them all in this guide will probably turn it into an SEO version of “War and Peace.” So for today, we are only going to focus on niche affiliate websites.
Niche affiliate websites work by promoting someone else’s product through content. A commission is earned from every sale the company makes. This is the basic concept behind affiliate marketing.
To do this, site owners produce articles, often reviews, covering topics like “The best five backpacks for hiking.” In such content, they detail the following:
- What the product is
- Who needs the product and why
- Reviews of the top few choices
- Advice for the reader on the pros and cons of each option
Each of these reviews contains affiliate links that send the reader directly to the product on the partner’s website. If someone makes a purchase then, boom, an affiliate commission is earned.
Like the majority of SEO, it depends—in this case, on specific things:
- Whether you choose the right niche
- Building the site right from the beginning
- How much time and effort you put into the site to get it off the ground
The simple fact is choosing a niche with high-ticket items, laying the right foundations, and putting more effort into the amount of content you produce and links you build will have your site earning more at a quicker pace.
Generally speaking, the sites I have built over the years have seen their first commissions within six weeks and hit the $1,000/month mark within 12 months.
In fact, here is a site I built around eight weeks ago that’s already earning (a minimal amount, of course) its first commissions on Amazon:
This site has little traffic. However, it won’t take long to scale up if it consistently produces content and builds links.
Here is January’s traffic of a site I built 12 months ago:
Here is January’s traffic of a site I built almost three years ago:
Both of the above sites are seasonal (hence the downturn in traffic for January). They currently see a solid ongoing monthly income and can be flipped in the future to make a profit.
Niche sites currently flip for around a 32X multiplier based on one month’s income. That means if you build a niche site that earns $1,000 a month within 12 months, you can potentially flip that site for $32,000.
But how do we do that exactly?
Earning an extra $1,000 a month from a niche site is a side hustle that may just be what you need. Or maybe being able to give up your day job and earn $10,000 a month from your site is the pinnacle of success.
Either way, we are going to look at the six steps you need to follow so that your site gets off on the right foot. These are:
- Choose the right niche
- Find the right keywords
- Build your site
- Write content
- Build links
- Rinse and repeat
Step 1. Choose the right niche
Choosing the right niche is absolutely crucial to starting a profitable niche website. It lays the foundation for everything else going forward, e.g., degree of difficulty to rank your site, amount of money you can earn, etc.
With that said, there are a few things you need to consider when coming up with profitable niche ideas:
- Personal experience/interests
- Choosing the right affiliate program(s)
- Viability in the long term
The niche selection process will look something like this, and we will discuss that more in a bit:
Are you interested in the niche?
From what I’ve observed, having too much experience in a niche can hinder the success of your site. Site owners tend to be too personally invested.
Every piece of content has to be vetted with a fine-tooth comb or written by the site owner themself. Of course, there is nothing wrong with taking pride in your work, but this is incredibly hard to scale.
For that reason, I recommend choosing a niche that you find interesting but not too interesting. You should have enough interest to produce some of the content in the beginning to keep costs down, but not enough that you want to write every single word in the long term.
Choosing the right affiliate program
Ensuring there are viable affiliate programs in your niche is a key part of niche selection. After all, you can’t make money as an affiliate without something to promote.
The ideal scenario is to find a product that has affiliate commissions of over 10% or high one-time payout offers. These can include a set fee for each referral you direct to a partner’s site.
The issue for newbies is that most private affiliate programs and even affiliate networks want proof the products will be successfully promoted. Only then will the programs and networks allow these newbies to become affiliates.
The only program that pretty much anyone can join at any stage is Amazon Associates.
Amazon affiliate commissions have been slashed in recent years and are, in some cases, significantly lower than other private affiliates’ (as low as 1% for some product categories).
But for a total noob, they make a great springboard to more advanced, private programs.
What I mean by this is that showing evidence of consistent earnings from Amazon can help you get a foot in the door to work with a desired private affiliate partner.
But regardless of the affiliate program, it is important to choose a niche that has high-ticket items.
It costs exactly the same to produce content regardless of whether the products you are promoting have an average cost of $350 or $3.50. High-ticket items will allow you to reach your goals faster, even with an affiliate program with lower commissions.
Therefore, finding a niche that has high-ticket items, a decent Amazon commission, as well as private affiliate options with commissions of 10% or above is the safest route for a total beginner.
Recommended reading: How to Build a Successful Amazon Affiliate Site (Step by Step)
Will the site work in the long term?
There is a temptation to jump quickly onto anything that is the new, hot thing. But is it going to last forever?
Choosing a niche for your site that happens to be hot right now is probably not going to give you enough scope in terms of keywords to scale your site.
Also, remember that focusing on seasonal niches, such as golf or tennis, means your site will likely earn more at certain times of the year and possibly nothing at other times.
That doesn’t mean you should avoid seasonal niches altogether. In fact, if you already have seasonal employment, e.g., you work as a ski instructor, a seasonal site you can focus on during quieter months of the year could be perfect.
But if you are looking to build an affiliate site to act as your main source of income in the future, you have to factor into your business plan that earnings throughout the year from a seasonal niche may not be consistent.
Step 2. Find the right keywords
Keyword research is the process of finding what your ideal audience is searching for in Google. It’s important because there’s no point ranking for things that nobody’s searching for, as you won’t get any traffic (and, therefore, no affiliate commissions).
When doing keyword research for niche affiliate sites, you’re mostly looking for three main types of keywords:
- General comparisons – Best wifi router, best protein powder
- Branded comparisons – MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro
- Product reviews – MacBook Pro review
These are all keyword types that people regularly search for where you can plug products to earn affiliate commissions.
Here’s how you can find them:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
- Enter broad topics or brands related to your niche
- Go to the Matching terms report
- Filter for keywords containing a relevant modifier
For example, if we are starting a site in the coffee niche and want to find general comparison keywords, we may enter “coffee” and “espresso” as our seed keywords. Then add “best” to the “Include” filter to find keywords containing that modifier:
If we want to find branded comparison or product review keywords, we can enter known brands like “hario” or “nespresso” and use either “vs” or “reviews” in the “Include” filter:
Because you’ll likely find it hard to rank for competitive keywords right out the gate, I also recommend filtering for low-difficulty keywords by setting the Keyword Difficulty (KD) filter to a low number like 25:
Although I would love to go into more detail, a full step-by-step guide is an entire article in itself. Luckily, our head of content, Joshua Hardwick, has already put that together for you.
Step 3. Build your site
Now it’s time to register a domain and build your site. It doesn’t matter all that much which domain registrar or hosting provider you use. Just pick one, choose a brandable domain, and get things registered.
For the actual site build, I recommend using WordPress because it’s super customizable and completely free. However, the default installation looks pretty dire, so it is important to consider using a good theme with a built-in page builder.
This will allow you to use the drag-and-drop functionality to create high-quality aesthetics on your site that can stand shoulder to shoulder with known brands and retailers. This is important because it helps to establish trust and authority with site visitors.
We will go through this in more detail below. But there are a few things to consider for the build process (aside from the aesthetics).
- Choose the right theme
- Consider conversions
- Think about E‑A-T
Choose the right theme
Your theme is going to be the core foundation of your site. The theme is going to determine how easily you can make changes to the design and how it performs.
As someone who has had to “de-thrive” many affiliate sites, I think it’s important to choose the right theme right out of the gate.
This is as trying to change it later down the line to make improvements is going to be a big job.
Many people think it is easier to just choose any theme and use a popular page builder. After all, page builders, such as Elementor, give you the ability to use the drag-and-drop functionality to create beautiful aesthetics without being a top web designer.
The only issue with page builders is they often add lots of unnecessary code to your site, dragging down the performance. Hence, you’ll need to get multiple performance-enhancing plugins to work with the page builder to counteract that.
Therefore, it is a good choice to go with a theme that has its own built-in page builder functionality, such as Astra.
There are even themes currently in development like those found on AffiliateFish—which I was recently asked to beta test—that are designed specifically for affiliate sites. Some themes allow you to have everything needed for an affiliate site while maintaining super speed.
Consider conversions
The aesthetic of your site needs to be high quality, as we want the site to look trustworthy. This comes down to the design and the considerations mentioned above.
It is also incredibly important to ensure your site has clear call-to-action (CTA) sections.
A CTA helps to entice visitors to act in a preferred way, such as clicking a link to your recommended retailer, downloading an ebook, or signing up for a mailing list.
Ensuring you have clear CTAs on all your product recommendations and even on your homepage makes it easy to direct visitors to check out the products you recommend so that you can earn those all-important affiliate commissions.
Think about E‑A-T right from the beginning
Expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E‑A-T), although not a direct ranking factor, is now more talked about than ever in the SEO community.
I truly believe at some point, for niche sites specifically, we will see something similar to the Medic update of 2018 across all niches. Google wants to ensure that any advice being given is from authoritative websites and authors.
Ensuring that your website has a clear and comprehensive “about” page and author bios from the beginning will help you to establish your site as a genuine authority.
Your author bios are meant to showcase experience and expertise.
For example, if you run an affiliate site about dogs and your lead editor is a vet, this really needs to be prominently displayed because it gives the articles on your site credibility. This is important for both readers and search engines.
Step 4. Write content
Content is the bread and butter of a niche affiliate site. This is where those all-important affiliate links, which can earn you commissions, will be housed.
Although I would love to delve in here with a step-by-step guide on how to produce epic content from start to finish, that’s going to be a topic for a whole other article.
But this guide on creating evergreen content is a fantastic starting point.
But generally, make sure that you write quality content that is unique and engaging. You don’t want to be producing generic articles that anyone can copy-paste and slap onto their site.
Also, it is incredibly important to write content for humans, not search engines.
AI-driven content optimization tools have risen in popularity over the past few years. Although they make a great addition for a newbie to understand how well optimized your content is, your articles should do more than just check SEO boxes.
Content should still be written with your audience in mind first and foremost. It should engage your reader and give them the answers they are looking for.
This is what will help you build trust and a loyal readership. This is important because you don’t want to be driving new visitors through organic traffic only. You also want to encourage your visitors to return time and time again because they love what you are doing.
Step 5. Build links
Links have always been important for SEO. But now more than ever, links need to be coming from high-quality sources. This has become even more apparent since Google’s recent spam update.
This beginner’s guide to link building from our CMO, Tim Soulo, will give you the lowdown on what link building is and why it’s important.
In terms of what kinds of link building you should be doing, these are my top choices for beginners:
- Earned media
- Broken link building
- Guest blogging
Earned media
Using sites like Help a Reporter Out (HARO), Terkel, and Sourcebottle is my go-to style of link building. Not only do these sites allow you to build high-authority links from top-tier publications like Forbes and The New York Times, but they also help boost E‑A-T.
Broken link building
When it comes to links, broken link building can be an easy way to pick low-hanging fruit.
Guest blogging
This link building technique is an oldie but a goodie! Guest blogging can not only help you build high-quality links to your website, but it can also help you improve E‑A-T and establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche.
For example, if you are a personal trainer building an affiliate site in the fitness niche, having a guest blog featured on a reputable health and fitness site that displays your author bio alongside it will undoubtedly help to promote you as an authority on that topic.
There are a few considerations when using this technique. Luckily, Tim has already put together a complete guide on guest blogging that covers everything: finding the right websites to reach out to, writing the post itself, etc.
Step 6. Rinse and repeat
This part is simple. It is just a case of repeating steps #4 and #5 over and over again until you build enough traffic to reach what you consider to be success.
The important thing is to have patience. Remember, every site is unique. What works and how quickly you achieve success depend on multiple factors. But it will happen. Just give it time!
Final thoughts
Following these six simple steps again and again while scaling as you go is a surefire way to build a profitable niche site.
Choose a niche with high-ticket items, create awesome content, and build links. It’s that simple.
Got 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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