Say I want to start a niche site on something that is a summer activity. Like surfing for example. Would it be a good idea to build up the site now and start obtaining link backs? Or, will the site fall out of favor with google by the time that the niche enters its peek in popularity?
yes get it rolling now so that you have some age in the index. also it is surf season somewhere in the world year-round. good luck.
If I go live with the site now, get plenty of links pointing to it, and then leave it untill surf season, will hold its position in the search engines untill next summer?
Build up some back links now because you will have a lot of competitors. By building up early you would gain an advantage.
You shouldn't allow any site to "peak", rather it should be constantly growing. So, to answer your question, there is nothing wrong with building a summer activity related site now, just don't expect to see too much in the way of results until that season is closer. But once it arrives, your site will be in a better position than if you started building it in April (depending on where you live, of course). And if you maintain it, it will be even more profitable the next summer.
As they say, make provisions for a rainy day beforehand ))) and besides people go to warm countries in winter as well, say for Christmas or New Year. And it takes much time to build and promote your site, so you'd better not waste your time and start right now
What is a safe rate to build up the site in order to keep it from peeking before summer? Like one 300 word article per month? Or 5 link backs per month?
The growth rate isn't as important as the consistency of growth. If you put out an article a day for a month and then switch to once a week, it may hurt your ranking. Just keep it as consistent as possible. The same applies to link building.
Yes, I agree with everyone's response here. If we have an idea that we like, even if the offer is only relevant during one season, we build the site and form content on and off the site as soon as possible. For example, we identified the money making possibilities to assist people with filing taxes in April 2008, a bit late to make anything out of it. So, we launched a site in May of this year, just after tax season, in order to take advantage of tax season 2009. As we get closer to January/February 2009, our promotional activities will increase, but we now have some "seasoning" so our opportunities, especially with organic search, are good.