Getting Prepared For An Affiliate Christmas - Bah! Humbug! Already?

Between now and 25th December all affiliates will be cajoled, pushed, bribed and harassed by merchants desperate to get on to various seasonally adjusted websites. Despite having a christmas shopping site at Xmastime, each year I vow to not spend too much time with it and each year without fail that vow is soon forgotten.

The thing is I do end up being sucked in by the excitement and perhaps to an extent hype that surrounds the Christmas shopping period. Plus as the site does do ok it does seem a tad bit silly to not at least try and make some effort with it.

However the site does suck out a lot of the Christmas spirit (there’s something slightly depressing about writing about Christmas in September) and makes this affiliate want to hit the other Christmas spirit earlier than usual.

1. We’re Totally Unprepared!
Yes it’s only September, but content for Xmastime 2008 should be already in place. It isn’t! A few bits of content added throughout the year would have saved a lot of time and hopefully picked up SEO. Every year it’s the same so one day we’re learn and listen to John!

2. It Needs Updating!
The one major drawback with a seasonal site is that last year’s big present ideas may not be around this year. This means going through popular pages and updating content, images, links, datafeeds and anything else that is important.

3. So That’s What That Database Was For?
Whilst making a start on updating up old pages it soon became evident that one database that “wasn’t needed” some time ago and therefore got deleted in fact was quite important. So for the last few months several pages have been down with errors. Ooops!

4. Choppy Changing Merchants
Going back to an old site (or a seasonal one you’ve left unattended for several months) highlights just how many merchants get itchy feet and chop & change networks. At least most of the links redirect to “alternative shop” landing pages now, but it does mean going back and fixing any problems.

5. Seasonal Banners
Here’s where banner overwrites can be a pain! The pages you have featuring Christmas offers look kind of strange when there’s a “Mother’s Day” banner sat alongside them! This means you either have to hope that merchant’s will switch them back soon or find alternatives…

6. No Seasonal Banners
A big frustration! You try and get organised for the shopping extravaganza but few merchants are ready as well at this time. This means you’re stuck with last year’s banners (or their overwritten “Mother’s Day” friends) unless you use contextual ads…

7. They’re The Wrong Contextual Ad Sizes, Gromit!
One day a network will come up with a contextual ad unit that can be resized to fit any space! Amazon, Google, Affiliate Window… come on give affiliates the choice of a flexi height and width contextual ad unit…. please!

8. It Always Takes Longer Than You Think!
This applies to any site, not just a christmas shopping one! What started off as a five minute see if it’s ok soon becomes several hours of recoding (did we really miss out so many meta tags? And why do edits always look ok in Firefox but not IE?) and whilst on the surface there’s a pretty-ish site, there’s still a lot of work left to do.

9. We Knew All This Already!
This is perhaps the biggest frustration of them all. Every year we go through this exercise and encounter the same issues. Every year we also vow to make sure the site is a bit more “future-proof” and be more organised in keeping it up to date. Improvements to the site CMS are always made and even small things that php-ing the year (so that Top Toys 2007 automatically becomes Top Toys 2008 for SEO) are done.

It’s not too late for you to get ready for an Affiliate Christmas, but with people already shopping for presents it’s best to get started asap! My advice about what christmas and affiliate marketing can be found on Affiliates4U.

Anyway the Xmastime site is in place and hopefully over the next few weeks we’ll be ready to make some sales.

If not then at least the site will be in better shape for next September’s pre-Christmas panic due to us being totally unprepared again (it’s as annual as Santa)!