Well, it’s now mid-July which of course got me to thinking about Christmas… because summer heat is always such a gift.

Ho, ho, ho.

Actually, I was musing about a ‘Christmas in July’ party that I and my friends had a very long time ago. We roasted a turkey, decorated the rental and strayed from tradition a bit by dining on the boathouse roof.

After entertaining myself with those delightful memories for awhile, I wondered if other people were contemplating Christmas in July.

Finding out was easy enough. I went to Google Insights for Search and searched for the term “Christmas” with results filtered over the last 30 days.

And it looks like I’m not the only one thinking of Christmas in July.

However, I certainly hope that those who were searching for “Christmas tree” in July were thinking about the artificial variety.

To the right of the most prevalent searches related to “Christmas”, Insights reports rising searches.

What is most notable perhaps are the returns for “Christmas holidays”. This is a term that travel bloggers might want to concentrate some effort on over the next couple of months as people plan their visits to (or away from) the relatives.

The rise of ‘Gifts’ and ‘stocking’ are good signs.

Recalling the elbow-to-rib hits I’ve taken in malls on Boxing Day, I know I’m not the only one who starts shopping early for Christmas. And let’s not forget the ‘nuts about Christmas’ types, who keep the brick-and-mortar “Christmas Store” viable all year long.

After seeing those results, I was getting really curious, and had to see if anyone was capitilizing on the term “christmas holidays 2010″ during the merry month of July.

The search returned 20 results and no advertisers.

Broadening the search to “Christmas 2010″ returned tons of results (mostly related to toys to be marketed this year) and only 1 advertiser.

So, it you want to get in there – now is a great time.

Remember — Christmas is ‘evergreen’, and I’m not talking about the trees.

The holiday happens every 365 days (which all those frantic last-minute shoppers seem to forget until December 24th), so there’s always a market, and that market is huge, even in July.

If you’re nuts about Christmas (or any other holiday), you may want to consider taking advantage of the opportunity to get ahead of the pack now.

There are so many different ways you could approach the niche. Create a content-rich site about Christmas traditions, crafts, or fill it with holiday recipes. How about sharing tips for Christmas decorating schemes or tips for surviving the holidays?

Monetizing the site will be easy. Find merchants at affiliate networks that offer exceptionally unique gifts, toys, ornaments and/or books to sell on your site.

Advertise using PPC, and keep your Google Adwords bids low until December, when your sales will soar.

Last, but certainly not least, build and work your list. Share some Christmas in July spirit with your subscribers and you’ll take your place at the top of the tree as a *star* affiliate by the time December rolls around.

Ho, Ho, HO. Merry (July) Christmas!

Speaking from the perspective of someone who has successfully made her living online since 1998 with affiliate marketing – and now in addition to building AM (affiliate marketing) sites, also writes, consults and speaks extensively on the subject – I’ve become increasingly frustrated with tricksters – um, I mean self-appointed *expert* affiliate marketing coaches and trainers – who essentially STEAL money from good people by promising to teach them how to build an affiliate “business” with almost no time, effort or money invested.

Surprisingly, although most of us know that if a promise ‘sounds to good to be true, it probably is‘, there are some who still buy into the lie.

Let me explain.

There are two different types of affiliate marketers with two very different marketing strategies. They are:

SUPER Affiliate Strategy: Build useful content sites that value customer relationships and generate traffic using a variety of methods, and:

NOT-Super Affiliate Strategy: Build all-but-useless content sites designed to trick the search engines into delivering free and easy traffic, but do not build a customer base.

If you’ve read either my “Net Profits Today” newsletter or the “The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online“, you know that I teach aspiring webmasters how to build affiliate marketing businesses using the SUPER Affiliate’s Strategy – PROVEN techniques to build affiliate marketing businesses that stand the test of time.

The NOT Super Affiliate Strategy

Now look closely at this basic outline of how the NOT-Super Affiliate strategy works.

1. Do keyword research to determine a profitable market.
2. Build keyword-rich pages to attract search engine spiders.
3. Submit your site to the engines.
4. Slap up Adsense ads and MAYBE a few affiliate links.
5. Do link exchanges with other webmasters.

Yup. That’s it. That’s ALL there is to it.

So, tricking the search engines should be cheap and easy, right? “

You’re right. SEO/Adsense site marketing IS cheap and easy… AND you can make some good money at it.

So, what’s the problem

Well, the people who teach this strategy always forget to mention the fact that most search engine optimization techniques fail over time.

In the last year, (TOO) MANY affiliate marketers who were bamboozled into believing that they could build an affiliate marketing BUSINESS using only search engine optimization techniques to get traffic to their sites, have contacted me, desperate to learn the techniques that I teach in the Super Affiliate Handbook because they lost out BIG time.

One webmaster lamented that their income dropped from over 40K per month to a low of $800 per month, and none of their SEO techniques was working to rebuild their income. Having set nothing aside during the good times, they were struggling with their bills and frantic to get back on track.

Oh sure, you can hedge your bets by building hundreds of these sites – which is what “NOT-Super Affiliates” MUST do in order to earn big incomes. That’s OK, I suppose, if you want to spend all day every day building one crappy fodder site after the next.

Take note though – I’ve heard of webmasters having MOST of their sites de-listed all at once.

All that work, and then they’re left scrambling to pay the big mortgage that they bought into when times were good.

How frightening would THAT be?

The biggest problem with the NOT-Super Affiliate strategy is that it is a VOLATILE traffic-generating technique – NOT a SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS-building strategy.

Build a Real Affiliate Business Based on Basic Business Practices and Principles

REAL Super affiliate business coaches always teach the most basic business principles, including:

• Why you should publish contact information on your affiliate site.
• How to gain credibility by writing informative product endorsements.
• The importance of having a USP (Unique Selling Position).
• How to build a subscriber base.
• How to build valuable, long-term visitor and customer relationships.
• How to get traffic to your site immediately, using a variety of methods.

No affiliate marketer who wants to build a REAL business, or plans to STAY in business over the long haul, ever short-cuts even ONE of those steps.

So, what constitutes a REAL business?

• REAL super affiliates don’t hide behind the anonymity of the web, but post REAL contact information on every page of their sites. We WANT to hear from our visitors and customers. That’s how we gain laser focus and direction.
• REAL super affiliates offer REAL value to their customers by sharing REAL and RELEVANT information. Fodder is for cows.
• REAL super affiliates establish REAL relationships with their visitors through opt-in lists, by which they share information about additional products and services. This is where the NOT-Super Affiliate trainers truly fail their students. With a subscriber list, even if your traffic fell to nothing overnight (which it never does with the SUPER Affiliate strategy), you’d still have your lists of subscribers and customers to whom you could send offers.
• Lastly, REAL super affiliates use a variety of both paid and free methods to bring visitors to their sites, knowing that free traffic generation methods are rarely, if ever, sustainable.

Although building a REAL affiliate marketing business requires a greater initial investment of time, money and effort; the rewards are exponentially greater.

The Sage-Hearts.com Example

For example, I built my first affiliate marketing site, Sage-Hearts.com, in early 1998. I wrote a few reviews of online dating services and articles relevant to the subject of online dating.

I added an Aweber Autoresponder signup form to build my subscriber base.

I drove traffic to the site using a combination of pay-per-click advertising and free traffic-generation methods.

Over the years, I’ve reviewed and added more dating services and grown my “Singles eScene” list to more than 150,000 subscribers.

ALL I do now with Sage-Hearts.com is occasionally change the content, and send out broadcast messages to my “Singles eScene” list subscribers to tell them about new online dating sites and services.

By the end of its first year online, Sage-Hearts.com was earning well over 5K per month. Now, in 2005, it earns MUCH more than that.

You don’t need to build dozens and dozens of sites, when you build each one according to sound business principles.

In the long run, I’ve done a lot LESS work, than those who build one site after another and constanty have to play cat and mouse with the search engines.

Better yet, I’ve never experienced a moment of FEAR that today might be the day that Google changes their algorithms and kills my fun.

So, which strategy will YOU choose?

1. Super Affiliate Strategy – Secure your future and build a few sites with rock-solid foundations, based on REAL business principles… and then go out and play, or;
2. NOT-Super Affiliate Strategy – Gamble with your future and build hundreds of spineless (list-less), seach-engine fodder sites that will collapse at Google’s whim.

The choice should be simple….

See you on the playground!

By the way, if you are a webmaster whose site is failing under the NOT-Super Affiliate strategy, don’t give up yet! There’s still hope!

You already know how to build a site and have learned some basic SEO techniques. Those are GOOD skills. Now read the Super Affiliate Handbook and incorporate REAL business-building (SUPER Affiliate) techniques into your existing site.

You’ve come this far… now go the rest of the way and secure your future!

Rosalind Gardner is author of the best-selling “Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in ONE Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online. Get your copy of the Super Affiliate Handbook today!