Interview with Jill Whalen of High Rankings

One of the long-standing and popular voices on search engine optimization is without question, Jill Whalen. From back in the day, you might remember the Rank Write Roundtable that she published along with High Rankings Forum has been a source of information for newbies and old hands alike for many years. I don't get to visit the forum as much, but when I do, I always find some useful insights. Jill has been a positive influence on many people. Just read Jim Boykin's recent post where he calls her, "Jill, you're probably one of the most often interviewed SEO experts in our industry, but I'm going to ask this question anyway: Please describe your background and how did you get involved with search marketing? You're right, this one does get asked a lot, so I'll give you the condensed version. Basically, back in 93 and 94 as a mom at home I did a lot of chatting on line and designed a personal website as well as parenting website for my IRC channel, "The Parentsroom." I learned how to get it found in the engines for relevant keyword phrases by looking at what sites would show up in certain search queries. I also started doing some web design for small businesses, and included the "getting found in the search engines" stuff in the packages. Once I started posting in email newsletters and the like a few years later, business really grew and I gave up the design part (cuz I pretty much sucked at it) and concentrated on the SEO aspect. And the rest, as they say, is history! I would have you know that it was because of reading your posts on Kim's forum and subsequently joining your High Rankings Forum way back when that I really started to get interested in SEO as a business. The cooperitive sharing of information I noticed on your forum was a very new concept I had not experienced in other industries. How has your stance on SEO tactics changed over the years? This is a tricky question because to me it feels like the tactics haven't changed at all. But, then when I really think about how I worked years ago I do realize that there were incremental changes along the way that I just never noticed I was making. Still, the same basic fundamental methods I used for SEO in the early years are the same I use now. I pretty much came up with the idea of writing your copy with your keyword phrases in mind, and now of course it's common knowledge. That's still the basis of all my client's SEO campaigns. Of course, in the early years we didn't have keyword research software, so we simply guessed at what to optimize for. I do remember a few clients wondering why they were ranking so well but not really getting additional traffic or sales. At the time, that wasn't really our problem. Now, with keyword research at our fingertips, there's no excuse for a failed SEO campaign, and that's the major tactical change in SEO as I see. Your site has very enviable rankings for many SEO related phrases. That must bring a lot of traffic. Do you find high rankings on broad terms invites more tire kickers and information suckers than qualified SEO inquiries? What in the world do you do with all those leads? SEO phrases and SEO in general has never been my major source of business. Very early on, I remember when the phrase search engine optimization was in its infancy, and I ranked very highly in Infoseek (one of the more popular engines of its day). But at the time, that ranking brought very few visitors because nobody besides those in the industry knew the phrase. It actually took years and years before I started getting real traffic for that phrase. And even then, it was often just other SEO companies checking out the competition. I certainly don't count on search engine traffic for leads for my business. What is good for leads are my forum and sometimes my High Rankings Forum is a very popular SEO forum and there's a lot of information that gets passed around. What advice would you give to a newbie SEO about getting information from forums? What are some good ways to filter the "noise" from the good stuff? My advice would be to choose one forum where the advice rings true to you, and stick to that one. You get yourself in trouble when you go back and forth between forums that have completely different SEO methods, and it will only confuse you. There are definitely many ways to skin the SEO cat, so choose the way that's most comfortable for you and don't bother to mix and match! Personally, I can tell you with 100% certainty that you will get no better advice anywhere than at my forum. The moderators are all true professionals who've been in the business for ages and know what works. And even better is how free they are with their time and advice. If you're new to forums, I'd have to say that at first to only trust the moderators for advice. Once you get to know some of the other folks who post a lot, you'll get a good feel for how believable they are. At our forum, no bad advice goes unchallenged though, so you can be pretty sure you're reading accurate information. I can't say the same for other forums, as I see a lot of just plain bad/wrong things being said. I've stopped reading at most of the others now because it's too tempting for me to post to try to correct what I perceive to be wrong, and once I got started I'd never be able to stop! After having been in the SEO business so long, what SEO fundamentals do you find are still true today as they were in 1996. In 2001? What has changed the most? Like I said earlier, it really doesn't feel like much has changed in all those years. Title tags have always been important, and I imagine always will be. The copy on the page, same thing. Links certainly got more popular over the years, but I have to say that I was offering linking campaigns way back in 96 and 97 as well. I just called them "custom submittals." We did it for the traffic, not the link pop. though, and really that's still the only reason I'd request or buy a link today. Link pop is a nice bonus though! You started offering SEO seminars a few years back and you have one coming up in Do people still send you chocolate? I stopped "begging" for it awhile ago when I actually started to get sick of it, and when my waistline started coincidently growing! Every now and then though, a long time subscriber will still send some. I just received some last week, in fact! What could search engines be doing better in terms of communicating with the SEO community? Are there tools for search marketers from the search engines (like Yahoo SiteExplorer) that you would like to see? You'll find I differ from most SEOs on this question. I don't think the search engines should be communicating with the SEO community at all. Why would they? Why would we need them to? Our job is to figure them out not to have them spoon feed us what to do. What fun is it for them to tell us the rules? Blech, how boring that would be! I'm probably one of the few SEOs who don't read Matt Cutts' blog (unless I'm specifically directed to a particular post for one reason or another). I really believe that the search engines don't truly communicate anything worthwhile anyway. For the most part it's just a whole lot of propaganda. But for those who are silly enough to believe what they say, it's all the better for those of us who know the truth because we figure stuff out for ourselves! As to tools from the search engines, I certainly make use of certain search operators like the site: command and the allintitle: command, but I don't need much more than that! Your newsletter must reach a million people these days : ) and quite a few of them rely on it as a resource. What are some of the resources you rely on for information on SEO/SEM? Best practices, news, industry information. Ah wellnot quite a million yet! At one point it was well over 30,000, but then I had to switch to double opt in and lost a huge chunk of subscribers. It was very depressing to be back down below 10,000 at that time. Now, I'm back up to around 22,000 so I feel good about that. For other SEO resourceshmmthe only place I visit consistently besides my own forum would be Google Alerts. Mostly there's just junk articles and crappy press releases that show up, but now and then there'll be a decent article of interest. But again, I get most of my knowledge by doing. I don't believe anything anyone else says about SEO unless I have seen it with my own eyes. And I tell this to people at my seminars or those reading my newsletter. They should not believe anyone either, not even me. They should just roll up their sleeves and do stuff and check the results. If you think you figured something out, test it again and again to make sure you're not just mixing up cause and effect. That's the best way to really learn SEO if you ask me. What search engines do you use most often? Do you use different engines for different purposes? Are there any unique search engines that you use? I don't search a whole lot as I have specific sites I visit already bookmarked. But, if I do want to look something up, I generally use Google. If I'm looking for something very specialized, I will sometimes check out Yahoo or Ask, as well. But really, Google pretty much has what I need, when I need it. You just have to know how to search properly in order to get the best results. Well said, Jill. Thanks! FYI, I you'd like to get SEO pearls of wisdom from Jill and friends in person, then check out the register. Thursday March 30 and Friday March 31, 2006 The Holiday Inn Walnut Creek, CA Registration before March 15th is $1195. After March 15th, it is $1395 Lee Odden is President and Founder of Online Marketing Blog offering daily news, interviews and best practices.