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Your Brain Has The Best SEO Available to You

Posted Monday, June 16, 2008 by momscashblog | 8 Comments so far

I find working from home on a  computer makes it easy to spend too much time reading and searching. Every day we can find hundreds of posts telling us how to make money with our blogs. It’s wonderful to have this information but it can also eat up your whole day just reading things that don’t really matter.

If you always read How to Make Money blogs it can mess with your head. Some posts are designed to make you feel like a failure if you don’t make $20,000 a day, while other more humble bloggers’s say be reasonable and don’t expect too much. You want to believe the $20,000 a day, but you know the humble blogger is probably the “real deal”. Reading conflicting reports like these can cause anxiety in your subconscious mind and keep you searching for the answer without knowing exactly why your stuck on that one topic. It’s your brain’s own little SEO at work and you don’t even know it!

Then there’s the technical stuff we’re all expected to keep up with. Every day there’s a new tech term some kid made up just to throw me off and I spend half the day trying to find the definition. Sometimes when I do find out what it means, I still don’t know what to do with it. More times than not, I end up on a scavenger hunt going from one blog to another and never learning what I needed to know. There goes a whole day sitting behind my laptop more frustrated than when I started. You may think it’s the classic case of “information overload” and it is, but it’s also your brain’s own SEO hard at work again.

The Zeigarnik Effect

There’s a good reason that we feel anxious and unsettled when we overload our brains with useless information. Ironically, the reason we feel that anxiety is the same reason that we continue to read that useless information in the first place! It’s a phenomenon called the Zeigarnik effect, named after the Gestalt theorist who studied the mind’s behavorial patterns. It explains the mental tension and unbalance a person feels when a task has not been completed. Our minds have a need for linear path thinking… which means “seeing one task all the way thru to the end”. It doesn’t matter what that information is, you asked yourself a question once and your mind will try to conduct a search until it finds the answer. Your brain has the best SEO available to you, but it needs guidance.

Most bloggers are stuck on the question: “How much money can I make with my blog?” That sends your subconsicous mind on a scavenger hunt for something that you have no conscious control over. If your brain had its own way, it would search day and night for little things it never got the answers to. So if you read useless information, the brain will seek the answers to useless information for as long as you let it. Your brain is doing it’s own computer search but YOU might have little control over the keyword search your mind is conducting.

Trick Your Brain’s SEO With a List of Your Own

You can trick this behavior pattern by becoming “aware” of the Z-effect and using it to your advantage. Make linear thinking work for you, not against you. Here’s a few ways to do this:

1. Make a list of what you want to know before your start reading blogs.  The mind loves lists. If you don’t make a list, it will make it’s own list and do it’s own searches on what it THINKS you want to know. Making a list gives your subconscious mind something useful to look for.

2. Search for the topics on your list one at a time.  Keep your mind on a ”linear path” of your choosing and finish the task. Your mind likes to finish tasks.

3. Write down a certain time to turn your computer off.  By doing this you give your mind another task to finish which takes it away from the task of searching useless information. The mind’s new task is to turn the computer off at a certain time. (Hey, it’s a lot better than searching useless info all day and night, isn’t it?)

4. Write a list of things to do in the real world.  This is very important. You need to remind your mind (and yourself) that you have a life other than your blog and the computer. Be specific with tasks  with lists like: “play with the kids, “go swimming today”, “take a walk”, “read your mail and do the bills”, etc.

Use the Z-effect In Your Blog

Knowing everyone experiences the Z-effect and has a need to finish a task to its end can work to your advantage on your blog. When a visitor is on your site you want them to feel the need to finish a task. One effective way to do this is by having “related topics” at the end of your posts. (It works for me every time I see it. I always feel the need to check out the other posts listed at the bottom.. the Z-effect in action!)

Many great online marketers who work with big companies know it is the Z-effect that compels people to buy a product. Try to craft your site, and/or your posts in a way that makes your visitors feel a need to finish a task on your site. (for most bloggers, the task is to click on your ads, of course!) Be careful though, because by doing this you are causing some conflict in the person’s mind by making them feel a little uncomfortable… like they are not done until they complete everything asked. If you create too much conflict or anxiety it can backfire on you and make them leave your site upset. So experiment a little with the Z-effect and see what happens.


Comments
Taylor Blue June 16th, 2008 (3:36 pm)
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I am loving your blog posts…Keep up the good work!! :)

Lisa - The Survey Queen June 16th, 2008 (6:15 pm)
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Hello,

This is not only your absolutely BEST post since you took over from Krysti, but one of the best posts I have read in a long, long time.

So simple, yet so profound.

Many thanks!
Lisa

Kate June 16th, 2008 (11:13 pm)
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I’m going to try this and see if it works. I’m very interested in things like these.

yup-Money June 17th, 2008 (2:16 am)
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Good post!!! Will try to follow your list to make things easyier!

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Nice advice. I also recommend not reading any blogs and just asking all your questions on DP :)

KG One Year Millionaire June 17th, 2008 (3:33 pm)
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Hey thanks for checking out my new blog!

I thought I would check yours out in return… I really loved this latest post you have… you really dug into a different side of internet marketing that a lot of people overlook. Sometimes people concentrate too much on the technical details of what they need to do in order to achieve a goal and forget that they are fully capable to accomplish anything if they put their mind to it!

I am going to subscribe to your blog’s RSS for future readings!

-KG

JJ - Moms Cash Blog June 18th, 2008 (2:56 am)
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Thanks Taylor… love your blog too! It’s nice to see something entertaining and not just think about blogs all the time. LOL

Thanks Lisa… glad you liked it.

Kate… me too, I’m always trying to figure out what makes people tick.

yup-Money… interesting name.

Stak.. what the heck is a DP??? (some new tech term I suppose. LOL)

KG One Year Millionaire… so true! Thanks.

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digitalpoint.com it’s a forum for seo/blog/marketing stuff

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