All the cool blogs are doing it so why can’t we do it too. I’m talking about a year in review wrap-up of the most popular and heavily viewed postings from the previous year. People are still saying “Happy New Year” to me so I guess I am not too late to the game. We did one of these last year, The Most Popular Tailgating Ideas Posts From 2008, so why not again this year?
Since opening up our doors for business in August 2007, we have experienced explosive growth. We grew so much this past year that not only did we bring in 31 percent more visitors compared to the previous year (roughly 393,000 visitors in 2009 to 270,000 visitors in 2008), but we expanded so quickly that we outgrew our old hosting company. (To read the entire back story on why we were forced to change hosting companies, click HERE.) Because the site was down for 72 to 96 hours days in the beginning of October, I am confident we would have broken the 400,000 visitor mark for the year had we not missed out on those three or four days. Also, just a bit of insider information to share, the months of September and October were the two largest traffic months the website experienced all year. It stands to reason those two months would be the most popular because people are in the beginning of football of season and looking for tailgating ideas.
So without further delay, here are the 15 most popular pages and posts from 2008. (Criteria for popularity of a post is based purely on page views as collected by Google Analytics.)
15. NFL Beer Pong Table Is Pure Hypocrisy – Prior to the start of the 2009 NFL season I spotted that the NFL and other retailers were selling officially licenced beer pong tables complete with NFL team logos. This blatant hypocrisy by the NFL encouraging “responsible tailgating and respectful behavior from its fans” yet they are willing to sell something that encourages binge drinking needed to be called out. A number of follow up posts came out after this one but the original post took in the most visitors and was linked to by other websites the most.
14. The Bucket List For Tailgaters – An oldie but a goodie, this was posted back in 2008. It sparked huge controversy in regards to which locations were included and which ones were left off. Until we ran a comments contest to win a Home Depot Gift Card, this post was the reigning comment king with over 20 comments on this post.
13. The 14 Tailgaters Who Annoy the Crap Out of You – Last year’s undisputed champion of traffic generators, this year it slips all the way back to No. 13. That’s to be expected seeing how the post was published over 18 months ago. It still reeled in over 6,000 visitors over the course of 2009 and continues to get links in forums and message boards as new visitors discover this site. As far as one of our humor pieces goes, this has to be our best effort.
12. Super Bowl Watch Party Essential: The Stadium Pal – This was the first posting of 2009 to gain a link out from the coveted Sports Illustrated Hot Clicks section. The post basically describes a contraption that allows men to strap it to themselves and relieve themselves into a collection bag without ever leaving the couch. Perfect for a Super Bowl party when you don’t want to get up and miss the game by hitting the bathroom or worse, coming back to find someone has claimed your favorite comfy chair.
11. Play Beer Pong Anywhere with Port-O-Pong Inflatable Beer Pong Table – The oldest post that still makes the list year in and year out is the product review of the Port-o-Pong inflatable Beer Pong Table. This post was published back in October 2007 and still took in over 8,600 views two years later. I still contend that a hot girl with a big rack holding up a beer pong table will bring in the eyeballs any day.
10. Summer Tailgating: How To Spike a Watermelon – Another post from 2008 that still pulls in visitors like the undertow of a tidal wave. Interestingly, while most posts see a traffic spike around the start of football season, this post saw strong response from May through August. I guess the fact that this post ranks No.1 on Google for “How to Spike a Watermelon” doesn’t hurt when people are looking to do a little backyard boozing.
9. Exclusive Interview With Playboy Playmate Laura Croft – She may be hot and get naked when there is a camera around but the reason why we did an interview with her was because she is a tailgater. Oh yeah, and because she is hot and gets naked in front of cameras didn’t hurt either.
8. Boycott Concessions at ACC Championship Game – One of the readers of this site had emailed us and it was the inspiration for this post. Apparently those in charge of running Raymond James Stadium in Tampa have a disregard for tailgaters. The ACC Championship Game was being played there and despite pleas from both Georgia Tech and Clemson fans, the stadium management refused to open the parking lots early to accommodate them. A group of fans called for a boycott of all stadium food and concessions sold inside in order get the attention of those in power. We just used the power of the internet to help spread the word in support of this action. Many read this post via incoming links from supporting fan forums and message boards.
7. Video: Nike Commercial Parody – Beer Pong – This was a YouTube video that was a parody of those overly dramatic Nike commercials. Instead of being a finely tuned athlete running stadium stairs in the dead of winter, this parody showcased a beer pong player’s training regime and his determination to be the best. This particular post hit the front page of Digg and blew up from there. Here is the video if you missed the original posting.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AfbN9e5KAA
6. Buy Tailgating Games – When we find new tailgating games that you just can’t find anywhere else, we test them out and if they meet our high standards, we offer them for sale directly from TailgatingIdeas.com. This page organizes those games you won’t find in stores in one easy to find location. I guess you people when browsing the web are looking for new and unique tailgating games which can all be found in here.
5. Bud Light Rolls Out “Tailgate Approved” Marketing Campaign – By now I am sure you have seen all of the commercials Bud Light bombarded us with during the college and NFL football season. The premise of the ad campaign was the over-the-top character “Jimmy Football” doing these infomercials for tailgating products. Think more like Billy Mayes if he were trying to get you to buy a cooler that turns into a grill. When it was all said and done, this article ranked in the major search engines No. 2 for the term “Tailgate Approved”. So while Bud Light was paying millions of dollars to advertise on TV, we were raking in those people searching Google and Yahoo for “tailgate approved” items to buy.
4. Tailgaters, This Is Why The NFL Hates You – This post consisted of a YouTube video of some drunken Cleveland Browns fan tailgating in the Muni Lot. The thing that made this video extraordinary was the fact that he climbed on top of a port-a-potty, poured a full beer over his head and started stripping off his clothes and throwing them into the gathering crowd. At one point he dances a drunken jig that almost has him falling off the port-a-potty onto his head. It was like watching a train wreck but you couldn’ help yourself from looking. I originally posted it as graphic example as to why the NFL wants to limit tailgating times because people abuse alcohol and act stupidly. Instead it was picked up by Digg (submitted and made popular by Steven of the popular humor blog, stevenhumour.com) and in poured over 14,000 visitors in the course of three hours. It’s a good thing we switched host servers by that time because that kind of traffic in a short amount of time would have definitely killed our old servers. Here is the video for those to lazy to click on the link above.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iscFlGpNyqg
3. Off Topic: Top 15 Most Quotable Movies – Inspired by Kareem Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s epic fail on Celebrity Jeopardy where he missed on a movie quote he himself uttered in the movie Airplane!, we compiled this list of the 15 most quotable movies. Obviously it created some controversy and discussion as to why a particular movie was left off the list but maybe in 2010 we’ll put together a second list. This post was also linked to by Sports Illustrated pumping its traffic numbers to over 15,000 page views.
2. The 10 Most Annoying People You Meet At A Super Bowl Party – This one ranks No. 2 mainly in part because it was prominently featured in the Super Bowl edition of Sports Illustrated’s Hot Clicks. A number of other prominent blogs linked to it as well but the lion’s share of the visitors came screaming in from Sports Illustrated. No matter how you slice it, this post reeled in 19,370 visitors over the course of the year.
1. Buy Tailgating Gear – You people sure like your tailgating gadgets and supplies. This page was the most popular article visited in 2009 and wraps up all the tailgating gear and items you can buy directly from TailgatingIdeas.com. As we discover new and unique tailgating gear, we test them out personally and if they are quality and help tailgaters tailgate better, we offer them for sale. This particular article just groups all those items into one easy to browse page showcasing the items with a brief description and image. So chalk it up to the power of the internet search engines doing their jobs because this article reeled in the most eyeballs, 21,661 when it was all said and done, all year.
So that about wraps up 2009. With almost 400,000 total visitors and close to 730,000 page views last year, we are hoping to improve upon that mark in 2010. Our goal is to top the 650,000 visitors mark and take in 1 million page views. Lofty goals for certain but we are up for the challenge. Happy New Year and let’s make 2010 the year of the tailgate.
