I’m always a little sad when fall sets in. Well, actually, I’m sad that summer is over, and so is relaxation time. But I’m also happy, because the start of fall is the time when affiliate marketers get into high gear. There are a lot of seasons to cover between October and December — are you ready for them? In the U.S., Halloween is the first big money-making opportunity, and it’s fast approaching.

Quite a few merchants offer Halloween merchandise that affiliate marketers can sell. So if you’re interested, check out your favorite network and see if there’s one available. If not, search around, it shouldn’t take long to find one. Then, get going on your PPC keyword list.

But wait, not so fast. The first thing you should do when deciding what to sell is to search on Google Hot Trends and find out what people are looking for right now. It’s football season; are there any costumes for that? Sometimes searching on the Trends page brings up things, sometimes it doesn’t. But when I searched just now, I see that the keyphrase “halloween costumes for women” is already at 42.

Armed with that information, I can start building a keyword list based not only on costumes for women, but maybe delve more into what women might be wearing — for example, “sexy costumes, nurse costumes, angel wings (my favorite), etc.

Hopefully, you get the picture. Remember, though, if you’re marketing to the Halloween party crowd, you need to be VERY specific in your keywords so you can get ahead of the competition.

If you don’t want to market to the October fun seekers, then start getting ready for December! There’s always something to sell — and always people looking to buy.