15 Traits of an SEO Nerd
Derek’s post from a few days ago reminded me of the first time I realized I was an SEO nerd. I had been working at a search marketing firm for about five months when one of my teammates called me over:
Steve: “Hey look what I found” (shows me website with about 700 lines of hidden keywords on the page)
Me: “Woah Cool!”……..”Crap. I can’t believe I just said that.”
I was a little saddened at first. I had never thought of myself as a nerd. I mean, I’m nothing like Screech! But then I started thinking and realized that I wasn’t really a nerd, I was just an SEO nerd and I was perfectly okay with that.
So what exactly is an SEO nerd? Well, let’s just say that if you laugh at any of the following…you are probably one yourself:
1.) You say or hear “Google” over 200 times a day and somehow aren’t sick of it.
2.) You use acronyms on a daily basis and you actually know what these mean – SES, SEO, PPC, CPM, CPC, SMX, SEM, ODP, SMM, ROA.
3.) Your friend uses your computer to search for something. You are slightly confused and amazed when they open Internet Explorer.
4.) It is perfectly acceptable to take advice from people with names like Graywolf, Randfish, Stuntdubl and rustybrick.
5.) Someone uses the term ‘Grease monkey’ to describe their mechanic and you immediately think of that smiling monkey face in the bottom of your browser window.
6.) You have an excel spreadsheet containing logins and passwords for 37 different sites…and those are just the ones you have signed up for.
7.) The following t-shirt slogans are funny – even at age 35: “Sometimes when I am alone I google myself” – “I facebooked your mom” – “YouTube Myspace and I’ll Google Your Yahoo”.
8.) You get excited for holidays just so you can see all the new logos…and then you blog about them.
9.) You can’t visit a site without critiquing it…”ha-ha-ha flash…good luck with that”. “No 404 custom error page? Loser” “Blinking graphic? Hello 1997”.
10.) Your friends and family have absolutely no idea what you do. They think you either work for Google, run a porn site or send email spam.
11.) Watching other people search is ‘neat’ to you.
12.) You check your RSS reader not once, not twice, but 15 times a day just to make sure you aren’t missing any important news.
13.) Stumble, Digg, Reddit, Furl, Fark, Scoop, Seed and Twit are things you do..and that doesn’t seem weird.
14.) Even though you use the darn thing, you still can’t figure out where the periods go in Delicious. De.lici.ous? Deli.cio.us? Oh right, Del.icio.us!
15.) The first time you made the front page of Digg was cause for celebration! Woo Hoo!
I know there are a lot more. When did you realize that you too were an SEO nerd?