It's that time of year again! Time to start making your holiday shopping lists for family and friends. One shopping demographic that often gets overlooked is to shop for family or friends that are bloggers. (We like gifts too!).
I get it. Unless you are a Christian blogger, you probably have no idea what a blogger would even need or want for Christmas, right? No problem! I'm a Christian blogger and I polled my Christian blogging friends to come up with this list of practical gift ideas for bloggers to make it super easy for you to get them something they'll truly appreciate and enjoy this holiday season.
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Gift Ideas Christian Bloggers
I know that my family always struggles with what to get me for Christmas because, like most, they don't really understand all this blogging stuff and I rarely ask for anything (not related to blogging). This year, I decided to make it easy for them by creating a list of things that I'd truly love to have for Christmas. I mean, come on, we ask our kids to make a list so why shouldn't we, as moms, do the same?
Gift ideas for bloggers include anything related to running the blog, creating graphics for social media, computer accessories, and even Bible study tools. Many of these things can be purchased outright and actually delivered in the mail. But some are subscriptions, so you'll want to ensure you put her name for the info when making the purchase for her. You might even just let her know upfront that you are getting it so she can be right there to enter the personal details herself. Some, such as hosting, will be connected to her blog so she'll need to be the one to get that all setup. Don't worry about spoiling Christmas morning by giving it to her early. I PROMISE – she will totally love and appreciate that you got her something to help grow her blog!
Gift Ideas for Bloggers – Courses & Tools
For most newer Christian bloggers, they don't usually have a lot of money to invest at first so they focus on the obvious necessities such as hosting and things like that. As a result, they miss out on some vital education that can help them grow their blog ministries much quicker and actually build the audience they desire. I did a poll recently among many of my Christian blogging friends and the #1 thing they most requested was to be able to enroll in a couple of quality blogging courses and SEO was at the top of that list.
- SEO for Christian Bloggers – This is a stand-alone course that helps to lay the SEO foundation for a Christian blog. It dives deep into backend SEO, keyword research, and formatting content for search engines. Most lessons include a video tutorial to break it all down. Students also have the option to join the highly-popular Christian Blogging Foundations Boot Camp at a discounted rate when it opens up for enrollment again.
- Email Templates – Most bloggers will agree that drafting emails to send to subscribers can be exhausting (and not fun). This template pack provides ready-made templates that can easily be edited to fit each blog niche.
- By His Grace We Blog Book – This is a great resource for new bloggers!
Gift Ideas for Bloggers – Blog Maintenance Tools
For any blogger, the monthly maintenance of running a blog can get expensive, especially if they are just getting started and not yet earning income from it. By purchasing any of these tools, you will definitely be saving her some money on things she absolutely needs to grow her blog.
- Siteground Hosting – Every blog needs hosting to make the blog work (sort of like you need AT&T, Sprint, etc., to make your phone work). Unfortunately, this is probably the most expensive tool needed to maintain a blog so getting this for her would definitely be something she can use all year long.
- Convertkit for Email – A huge part of blogging includes having an email list to connect with each week. There are a lot of free services out there but they often have limited functionality. ConvertKit is one of the preferred services for managing subscriber emails.
- Tasty Pins – This is my absolute favorite tool for blogging! It is used to ensure the images on the blog are optimized for sharing on Pinterest (which totally helps send more traffic to her site). This handy little tool will make it so much easier for her to pin the right content from her blog posts.
- Tailwind – A huge part of blogging includes being super-active on Pinterest (which can be a huge time-suck). Tailwind is a handy scheduling tool for Pinterest which will enable to her stay active throughout the day while still getting the rest of her blogging tasks completed.
Gift Ideas for Bloggers – Graphics and Images
Stock Image Subscription
The key to having a Christian blog stand out is to have really great graphics for the site and for social media. Most newer bloggers will skip this expense and just use images from free sites. The problem with this is that so many people end up using the exact same images (which doesn't help them to stand out). An annual subscription to a quality stock image site would provide her with a large selection of high-quality images that she can use on the blog as well as for social media posts.
Some additional goodies that make great gift ideas for bloggers to use for their branding and graphics include:
- Canva Pro– Most likely she is using the free version of Canva which is OK. But the Pro Version offers so much more to enable her to create beautiful graphics for social media, Pinterest, and her site.
- A Camera – In addition to the stock images, having a good camera is important for taking your own pictures for Instagram. I would definitely ask her is she has been eyeing one in particular, but splurging for a package deal that has the case and some accessories is a definite plus!
- Design Bundles – Design Bundles is an awesome site that offers a huge selection of free and paid graphics and fonts. By purchasing the Plus Membership, she'll be able to download new graphics each month for free to add to her graphics arsenal. This is really helpful for making sure she has graphic elements to use for the different seasons throughout the year.
- Creative Market – Creative Market is sort of like a one-stop-shop for graphics, themes, and more.
Gift Ideas for Bloggers – Planning Tools
Tools for planning out the new year are always great gift ideas for bloggers! These specific tools will not only help her in mapping out her blogging goals, but the first 2 can also help her in mapping out and achieving more personal, as well as spiritual goals for the new year.
- PowerSheets – A 12-month, intentional goal-planner with comes with monthly goal-coaching, a resource library, and a networking Facebook group to assist in reaching all of her goals.
- Grace Goals – Grace Goals is a totally unique goal-setting process that lays the spiritual foundation necessary for real transformation in your life. Through a series of step-by-step workshops and exercises, Grace Goals will show you how to work in conjunction with the Spirit of God to fulfill the desires He’s placed in your heart. It's a biblical process for total life transformation.
- Me & My Big Ideas Planner – This is a great planner for jotting down appointments, blog notes, social media posting schedules and more.
Gift Ideas for Bloggers – Desk Accessories
- Microphone – Most Christian bloggers go live on Facebook and/or have a Youtube Channel. Having a good, quality podcasting microphone can really make a difference!
- Desk Organizer Sets – This is a no-brainer! Every woman loves to have pretty things! What better way to spruce up her desk area than with matching organizing tools!
- Mouse pad – Instead of a plain old mousepad, she'll definitely enjoy looking down to see her favorite Bible verse!
- Coloring Bible – Sometimes, she may just want to take a break from actual blogging tasks. In my downtime, I love to color my favorite verse of Scripture in my Inspire Praise Bible!
- Journaling Pencils – To go along with her new coloring Bible, she will obviously need some new, high-quality journaling pencils!
Gift Ideas for Christian Bloggers
While I've included some of my favorites and some things that my Christian blogging friends said they would want, what it really boils down to is you asking her what she would like to have for Christmas to help grow her blog. I promise that you can't go wrong by asking because then she'll know that you are trying to get something that really means something to her. But if you still want to go with the surprise method, anything on this list will be a hit!
All really Great Ideas! I think this year, I am going to add a tripod to my list too. I been tempted to do more livestreaming but I dont even have a phone tripod yet which usually changes my mind to do it. Lol. I think its a perfect stocking stuffer for anyone.