What is it about the Tiger King that has lockdown audiences all over the world on the edge of their seats? The bleached mullet and glitzy ’80s wardrobe? The foul-mouthed tirades, drug-fuelled affairs and shady murder plots? Whatever it is, the seven-part documentary series about American zoo owners who love big cats has been Netflix’s Number One show for just more than two weeks now.
The King does digital marketing
Currently trending on TikTok, Twitter and Facebook, the show has launched a myriad of merchandise and memes. It’s safe to say Tiger King has made his mark on the entertainment world and even touched on digital marketing. In episode four, Joe Exotic vents his frustration: Anytime anyone searches for tiger on Google they get his nemesis Carol Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue website. “Doc” Antle, the founder of Myrtle Beach Safari, agrees: “She’s the first choice every time – supersedes all the zoos; she’s at the top of all search.” (sic)
SEO Joe Exotic style
So what does someone of questionable morals do when they want their brand to rank as high as the competition? “Joe started realizing that if he made his name close to Big Cat Rescue, when they Google it, it might pull him up first,” said John Reinke, former manager of the G.W. Zoo. Joe went ahead and changed the name of his zoo to – wait for it – “Big Cat Rescue Entertainment”.
Exotic’s Big Cat Rescue Entertainment logo (left) and Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue logo. Source: Netflix.
So far so good for Joe Exotic. His shady misrepresentations were a brief success, he fooled search engines and customers. That was until Carol Baskin sued him for copyright infringement and won $1 million in a settlement. You might not get hit by a massive lawsuit, but you still shouldn’t use bad SEO.
Black hat SEO – bad
Dodgy SEO practice, or Black hat SEO, goes against search engine guidelines to achieve a better ranking in search results, according to Hubspot. These can include keyword stuffing, cloaking and using private link networks.
“Sustained use of black hat SEO techniques is likely to damage your presence in search engines rather than improve it.” – Hubspot
White hat SEO – good
Black hat SEO could result in penalties, being ranked lower in search results, or even being wiped out completely. Using good SEO techniques will have a positive impact on your ranking and make for better user experience for your readers. Hubspot recommends:
- Don’t keyword stuff overusing irrelevant keywords.
- Don’t use cloaking where you show one piece of content to users and a different one to search engines.
- Don’t use sneaky redirects sending users to a different URL than the one they clicked on.
- Don’t use poor-quality content with no value to the searcher.
- Don’t buy or sell links to manipulate ranking.
- Don’t abuse structured data/rich snippets to favour your content on a search engine results page.
- Don’t use blog comment spam to add a link to your website.
- Don’t use link farms to add website links and make your website rank higher.
- Don’t use private blog networks for link building.
At League, we use good SEO to attain a higher ranking for our clients on search engines. We want to put our clients in the best light and provide the best experience for people consuming our content on the internet. Don’t be like Tiger King, talk to one of our content experts today about how we can help your company use good SEO.
