If you are a fan of the ABC hit show Shark Tank like we are, then you’ve probably heard of the phenomenon, the Shark Tank effect. The term is referring to the significant impact the show can have on the businesses, due to the 7 million + viewership.

We wanted to look at this shark tank effect through a SEO lense. Hubspot recently did a piece that looked at the influx of traffic that comes to a website once the show airs. Making sure the site is ready to handle that rush of traffic is one thing but what about the long term SEO benefits a media blast of this magnitude can have on SEO?

Tower Paddle Boards, a stand up paddle board manufacture and seller, aired on ABC back in 2012. Mark Cuban ended up investing $150,000 for a 30% stake in the company. Since the show aired, the company has been written about and linked to by numerous high domain authority sites like Forbes (DA – 97), The Union Tribune (DA – 90), Entrepreneur (DA – 92), and numerous others. Below is an excerpt from the piece written by The Union Tribune.

Today, www.towerpaddleboards.com has a domain authority of 41 and this number continues to grow from the continued buzz around the business, all because of their 15 minutes of fame. Tower Paddle Boards is currently ranking in the 4th position nationally for the search paddle boards, and even higher here in San Diego, where the business is located. The term has over 60,000 searches a month and is contending with fierce competition from national retailers like REI, Amazon, and Dick’s Sporting Goods. When I made the search for paddle boards from my desk in North County San Diego, it was actually the first result. See that SERP (search engine results page) below.

For these businesses fortunate enough to make it on the show, capitalizing on all of the media attention by obtaining solid backlinks is an opportunity that can’t be passed up. The marketing team should be helping with stories everywhere they can, and making sure a simple link is left back to the site. A sites domain authority is the single biggest ranking factor in today’s complicated world of search engine optimization, but is one of the most difficult tactics to implement. Having something as buzz-worthy as an appearance on Shark Tank is beyond link worthy, and makes your PR effort in this regard relatively easy. Links from other popular sites is a sign to Google and other search engines that a website is a credible source on the web. This enables a site to rank for new keywords and improve positions for current ones.

Experts believe that an appearance on the show is worth $4 – $5 million in marketing exposure. From a digital marketing perspective, we think a lot of that value can be captured on the SEO side.