Everything you wanted to know about the SEO Halo effect

The halo effect is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual’s positive or negative traits seem to “spillover” from one area of ​​their personality to another in others’ perceptions of them. Now you must be wondering how this applies to the world of search engine marketing. It’s no secret that it takes longer to rank higher on Google compared to ranking higher on Yahoo and MSN. Yahoo and MSN tend to allow newer websites to rise to the top in a matter of weeks; while Google, on the other hand, will keep a new website waiting; this is done to prevent spammers from grabbing the top ranks through huge link campaigns.

Therefore, the SEO halo effect takes place when your website gets its first top ranking. It seems that when your website reaches the coveted number one ranking for a popular keyword; to get the following are easier. For example; for my website; SEO for Google; that was the exact phrase I was optimizing when the website first launched in January 2005. I spent four months servicing directories; write and publish articles every two weeks; and I made sure to post to my blog at least 5 times a week.

I knew I had to run from pillar to pillar to get past the “sandbox” in which Google would place the website. And in April 2005; my website finally came out “out of the box” and the phrase “SEO for Google” had the website in around 30’s. I worked hard for another month to get the phrase to the top spot. Finally; after five months of relentless effort; about 1,200 submissions to directories and article publications; all based on the key phrase “SEO for Google”; my efforts paid off.

Goal; now the challenge was to expand other phrases that people would enter to find information about search engine optimization for Google. So; after using wordtracker; I found nine more sentences to follow which are; Google SEO, Google Search Engine Optimization, Google Search Engine Optimization, Technical SEO, Google Search Marketing, SEO and Google, Google Search Optimization, Google Search Engine Marketing, and Google SEO Optimization Google.

Now; put things in perspective; Competition for the phrase “SEO for Google” wasn’t great when I started; it was about 5 million results. The novel phrases; he averaged about 30 million results to compete against. So; My effort to get these new phrases has to be even greater. Nope; all thanks to the SEO halo effect. This day; the nine sentences mentioned above are within the top 15 on Google and rising. I keep getting directory submissions for the new phrases; while every tenth list I will continue to use the original phrase.

I am sure that after reading this information you know all the ins and outs of the halo effect of SEO. Go ahead, take advantage of the trust you’ve built with search engines for your top phrases and always look for similar key phrases that can help you rank.