Many of us anticipated the new Justice League movie as a sign of new things to come to the superhero movie genre. However, if Rotten Tomatoes is to be trusted, Justice League massively failed to meet our high expectations, and the same can often be said of our favorite sites online.
Search Engine Optimization has often been the topic of discussion in regards to website optimization and its importance in the overall internet as we know it. It’s easy to forget the importance of SEO and simply build content without questioning the logic behind Google’s SERP and indivertibly ruin our site’s reputation in the process.
The problem that plagued Justice League (as our primary example) is the fact that most of its ad campaign focused on non-existent footage and story elements. This type of marketing is the very fact that the movie did so poorly at the box office, making both fans and critics upset and sad about their heroes’ first big screen outing. Drawing a parallel between JL and SEO, we can easily notice that misinformation and poor message choice (“All In”) can lead to huge ramifications, revenue loss and distrust with fans. Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which you can quickly save your sites SEO reputation and retain the audience you built up over the years regardless of the mistake or two along the way.
1. Missing Metadata
Metadata is used by Google to quickly assess the quality of an article that becomes predominant on SERP. This data usually consists of a short textual summary and we can often see it below the result itself as a means to take a peek at the content before actually accessing it.
A parallel can be drawn between Justice League and missing Metadata in your SEO optimization. The movie itself is guilty of overselling scenes that were missing completely from the final product. This lead to a concern from both critics and fans, who felt betrayed by the move Warner Brothers pulled in the post-production process. In order to avoid bad publicity and significant revenue loss, you need to make sure that your Metadata reflects the content on the site itself. It can sometimes mean a difference between being ranked on the first page of SERP or being excluded from the search results entirely.
Many blogs and news sites avoid using Metadata because it can often be misleading from the actual content. If you look at this website translation services that you may want to consider you will notice a pattern of including Metadata in every translation that becomes published. Metadata is very important when it comes to SEO and the reputation you build as a reliable source of information.
2. Too many internal links
Internal links are a good way to self-promote your content and make sure that the traffic stays inside your domain. However, users who notice that all of your hyperlinks lead around the website they are already on might confuse this with spam or ad dependency.
Focus your intentions on finding reliable sources for your backlinks instead of solely focusing on internal links for your site optimization. It can also help translating it into a foreign language or two, in order to pass the SEO check with a higher grade. Over-reliance on internal jokes and world-building instead of proper storytelling is a good example of how Justice League managed this issue poorly.
Anyone who watched the movie without any background about the characters was left dumbfounded by the fact that so much exposition relied on preconceived notions and knowledge from the audience. Such reliance on internal logic without setup or context is exactly why SEO optimization should include both external and internal sources for good measure. Find a balance between working with other sites and relying on your old content for a good blend of SEO.
3. Poor image optimization
Uploading images in their source format might not be the best idea when it comes to SEO optimization of your content. Many of the images that come from stock photo sites or your in-house photographers far exceed the size limitations of SEO. Your site ranking might suffer as a direct result of poor image optimization, which means that proper compression must take place before the upload.
While Justice League did have an amazing visual content campaign backed up by many companies such as Gillette and Mercedes Benz, their focus lay on the assumption that fans were well-informed DC fans. Oversaturation became apparent when character posters and team compositions started popping up in so many different styles that many were left confused about what’s going on. Focusing your visual style and relying on as few visual content elements as possible will do your brand and web pages a huge favor SEO-wise.
Similar to trying to avoid mistakes in translation, you should always strive toward using images of good visual quality and abundant Metadata in the form of alternative text. Some people still use limited internet plans and not all images will show properly on their devices, which is why Metadata plays a crucial part in image SEO optimization.
4. Lack of mobile support
Mobile support in SEO is essential if you want to save your reputation as a professional source of information. Many of your visitors will read articles or share content through their smartphone and tablet devices without even thinking about their computers. It’s important to employ native design on your website through a provider such as WordPress in order to ensure the best quality experience for everyone.
For anyone who followed Justice League’s marketing campaign from the start, the notion of a Superman-less Justice League seems bold and unique. The movie was quite successfully marketed as being led by Batman, with Superman being left behind in the previous Batman V. Superman movie. This type of reliance on missing content while offering a substantial compromise can indeed work if your marketing team is clever enough. While mobile support (or addition of Superman) can help you bring new fans and readers faster, it can also make your work more difficult and bear very little reward in the long run.
Mobile support also means skimming on the long-form content you might be used to by now because people don’t have the time or patience to read long articles on their phones. Direct messages with clear and cohesive rewards for reading are the key to success if you want to focus on mobile SEO.
5. Over-reliance on keywords
Keywords are what drives site optimization and improve your overall search engine ranking. However, over-reliance on keywords can get you flagged and removed from SERP altogether if you are too greedy in your optimization.
Relying on keywords that don’t reflect the content of your article is similar to the fashion that Superman was used in the Justice League movie. His death and eventual resurrection served very little purpose in the grand scheme of things given his messiah-like character in the universe.
The resulting backlash and disappointment meant that Justice League would underperform at the box office severely, leading many to speculate what the purpose of the entire universe really was. Rely on the keywords that reflect your content and don’t saturate your website with things that may lead you to clicks and ad revenue in the short run but leave you with a bad SEO reputation to deal with.
Trying to find a trusted company that makes translation is equally important as optimizing the original content they will work with. Using niche keywords relevant to your audience to a certain extent without violating Google AdWords policies is just as important as the rest of the content. Your SEO reputation and reputation as a whole will depend on your professionalism when it comes to optimizing the content to improve search ranking.
6. Optimization over content quality
It’s always a good idea for the content creation to be a two-man job. For example, one person can write the original content and make sure that the message comes across as clearly as possible while the other might reveal translation tips to it and help with SEO. Creating content centered on SEO instead of quality content is always a bad idea and can jeopardize your reputation on the internet.
Justice League never had any issues when the quality of marketing content was concerned. However, where the movie did fail was in meeting those high expectations in the theaters. Much of the content that was advertised previously was cut from release, making both fans and critics wonder what just happened. Relying on content that raises huge bars for you to reach might not be a good idea. Be as realistic as possible when optimizing your SEO in terms of what you can deliver to the audience. Avoid the Justice League syndrome by offering quality content that doesn’t rely on cheap tricks or ads in order to appease your audience.
People will quickly realize whether or not you created a piece of content just to promote a certain product or get ad revenue which is why you should tread carefully. Create content that carries a message before optimizing it for SEO and SERP. This is the only way to remain true to your mission of delivering relevant content to your audience without coming across as greedy.
Balancing the content you want to deliver and the SEO optimization that comes with it is no small feat. People will quickly jump to conclusions if they notice content that doesn’t really blend with your overall site niche.
The same thing plagued Justice League from the start, leading people to believe one thing about the movie only to change it after a few weeks of post-production. Inconsistent messages and hazy content that promises very little for the trouble of going through it is something that every SEO-optimized site should be careful about. Don’t overreach in your intent to reach new audiences and build your site brick by brick, bottom to the top.
Make sure to always communicate any sponsorships or advertisement deals you have to your audience and build long-term trust with them. You never know when you might need the full support of your readers if push comes to shove and your SEO reputation comes under fire.
About the author: Margaret Reid is a self-driven specialist who is currently working in The Word Point company and trying to improve herself in the blogging career. She is always seeking to discover new ways for personal and professional growth and is convinced that it’s always important to broaden horizons. That’s why she develops and improves her skills throughout the writing process to help and inspire people.
