Are You a SEO Asstard?

January 28, 2008 · 14 comments

The importance of direct traffic to SEO, illustrated by beer bottles and cans.

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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }

1 TheMadHat January 29, 2008 at 1:39 am

Nice vid. I’m an SEO Asstard! As illustrated by this months analytics:

Direct: 16733
Search: 1534

I think one primary reason is most of us don’t really care about our search traffic and most don’t completely optimize for search traffic unless we have highly monetized blogs. Linkbait titles like “The Hitchhikers Guide to Linkless SEO” for instance is not going to be searched much.

For SEO blogs direct traffic and the reputation of not being a total asstard in general are key (and there seems to be more and more asstards popping up all over the place). Well done topic on a topic that’s not discussed outside the domainers world.

And I haven’t used Asstard this many times in one day before…I feel liberated.

2 pat January 29, 2008 at 3:22 am

Yeah, saying “asstard” is fun.

3 Danny Sullivan January 29, 2008 at 12:49 pm

We do talk about it, Patrick. It’s just that no one remembers. See:
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2163711

“The high usage of search engines found by past surveys and the low traffic generated by search engines highlighted in the recent surveys are not in conflict. This “search gap,” as I’m calling it, comes naturally out of the fact that once someone has found a web site that satisfies a particular desire, they will probably go directly to it in the future, rather than navigate to it via a search engine.”

4 pat January 29, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Danny, you never have to say “I covered it before”. I know you always have :)

Thanks for commenting.

5 David Mihm January 29, 2008 at 7:37 pm

Damn, I go on vacation for a few days & now it says this video is no longer available. That’ll teach me to go on vacation.

Asstard! :D

6 SteveDave January 29, 2008 at 9:11 pm

Sit back from the camera, asstard. You’re going to scare all the little girls away.

7 Dedicated SEO January 30, 2008 at 2:25 am

Boy, that’s a lot of beer bottles!
I mean “non search related people” :)
Thank you for the funny video.

8 Rae February 1, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Wow… blogrolled.

9 Jordan Kasteler February 3, 2008 at 8:56 am

Note to self: put microwave next to your bed for easy access.

10 Jon Henshaw February 3, 2008 at 3:30 pm

That was definitely entertaining. I’m convinced that you emptied those bottles (and one can) before taping ;)

I think the type of traffic you want depends on your overall strategy. I actually prefer search engine only traffic if the purpose of my site is to promote click-throughs on ads. It certainly isn’t a long-term strategy (unless you can stay at the top in the SERPs), but that traffic converts the best.

Ultimately though, if you’re attempting to create a community and most of your traffic is coming from search engines, then you definitely have some rethinking to do.

Enjoyed the video!

11 Tudor Mateescu February 3, 2008 at 7:24 pm

So fucking true :) )
Got a good laugh and tips!! Congrats!

12 pat February 5, 2008 at 2:56 pm

Rae, thanks that means alot.

13 Dito February 22, 2008 at 3:11 pm

no drinking on the job!

14 Soli March 6, 2008 at 12:30 pm

@Dito

No drinking on the job? Says who? Or do you mean drink, but don’t get drunk. :oops:

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