Search Featured: Jill Whalen

Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings and one of the most respected voices of SEO. She is also a very cool chick and me liking you is mandatory for qualifying you as an interviewee. Enjoy!

MD: Jill, you have been in the SEO industry for so many years now, what are some of the highlights and also some of the lowlights which you can recall?

JW: Hmm…good question! I’d have to say that every day is actually a highlight as I still learn something new each and every one of them. Every week there’s something new happening, or some new controversy to discuss. It’s pretty fun!

For lowlights, I’d have to say those were back when Google used to do those major updates and screw tons and tons of businesses in the process. I remember one update that happened right before an SES Conference in Chicago many years ago, and there were so many webmasters there who were devastated by what had happened to their websites prominence (or lack thereof) in Google. Google did go back and loosen the screws a bit after that one, but I’ve never seen so many shell-shocked faces before.

MD: One of our themes on Search Feature is the future of SEO. We basically want our readers to get an idea on what they can start doing today to be competitive in tomorrow’s search engine marketing world. What would you recommend a new or intermediate SEO should start doing which the regular SEO books do not tell you about?

JW: The interesting thing about that is that to succeed in tomorrow’s search marketing world, it’s the same as how to succeed in today’s “real” world. You have to have something great and unique. So those who are creative will always be the ones on top. Those who just copy what everyone else is doing will find it much too difficult to survive for the long haul. It also takes lots of hard work, passion and dedication. People with those traits have always been successful, and will continue to be long into the future.

MD: Let’s walk the fine line of linkbuilding for a while. I recall you being one of the first using the term linkbait years ago, but how do you recommend getting started with a brandnew site to let’s say achieve getting ranked for some competitive keywords within 6 months - 1 year?

JW: Nah, that wasn’t me using the term linkbait. I can’t stand the word, especially with the connotations it has developed today, i.e., basically tricking people into linking to you.

In terms of helping a brand new site in a competitive market to get ranked quickly, I don’t have any advice for that. There are no quick fixes and never have been, so that’s not really my area of expertise. My focus is and has always been on helping existing, established companies to fix their websites to be the best they can be.

MD: Is there really a way to compete with with business sites investing a large amount of money into SEO by simply creating something that people will want to link to and tell their friends about?

JW: Sure. Look at some of the new sites that came on the market and then were sold for millions in a year or two. Places like YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, etc. They had unique ideas and built a better mousetrap. Again, it all comes down to creativity and passion, not necessarily money.

MD: Links vs. content. There are different strategies. Either targeting a mass amount of easier keyterms thru a large amount of content, or go for the harder terms and put more of an emphasis on linkbuilding. If you were to start out today, which strategy would you be most likely following and why?

JW: Why are those the only 2 strategies? At High Rankings we don’t do either of those things. Building a massive amount of content for the sake of SEO is usually going to be crap content, and I would never recommend that to anyone. And attempting link building without something worth linking to is another useless folly. Your question presupposes that one has to target either the easy terms or the hardest terms. But the trick, if you will, is to target the middle ground. In other words, those keyword phrases that get a lot of decent searches, but for which are still obtainable if you know what you’re doing. It always amazes me how often the truly best keyword phrases get ignored!

MD: Let’s say there is a blogger who has no desire to get into the technical aspect of SEO. He just writes for the people and has no desire to change anything, but he hires you to help him promote his blog. What would you encourage him to pay attention to when writing articles and which social networks do you believe help the most to help someone promote their blog or site?

JW: High Rankings has done some consulting with corporations who are putting together blog strategies for various purposes. However, every blog is different, so there’s no one-size fits all solution. One company we consulted with had an awesome blog on social responsiblity that was perfect for promoting on Twitter, Facebook, and other similar venues. On the other hand, many of our B2B client’s would probably not get much out of participating in those types of communities.

It all comes down to finding out where your target audience hangs out and then becoming part of that conversation. As to what to write about in your blog, once again, that’s where the whole passion things comes in. Write about what you love and your passion will come through. Passion is infectious and is a great viral marketing tool. Just remember that you can’t fake passion, so don’t even try. The community will smell that a mile away!

MD: Talk to your clients now, past present and future. I’m sure that you have to overcome the same old barriers over and over again when trying to explain the strategies to rank their sites.

Imagine 50 future clients reading this and tell them what to keep in mind when they are going to get started in one of your classes.

JW: Our clients generally have some specific SEO problems that need solving, so we go ahead and do that for them. By the time they become clients, they already know our process which makes there a lot less barriers to overcome. Our advice is different for every client as it depends on their unique needs. This is something that often sets us apart from our competitors — we don’t have any one-size-fits-all strategy. No two companies can use the same exact SEO strategy, so there’s no reason in trying to sell that to them!

For those taking one of our High Rankings SEO classes, they often have a misunderstanding of what SEO is and isn’t, so we start out teaching them that, and then move on to providing them with the specific info they each need to take their own websites to the next level. If they need or want additional SEO consulting later, we can provide that, but most learn enough in the class to fix what’s broken in order to start gaining more targeted search traffic.

MD: Recently we are seeing 14 years olds rank for some tough terms companies are spending $1,000.00s a month on and the web gets cluttered up with some weird stuff. Library of Congress is talking about serializing blogs http://www.loc.gov/blog/?p=42

and Steve Forbes has mentioned that blogging can hurt the economy. Where do you stand in this discussion and what are some of the effects a decision to place labels on blog could have?

JW: I’m really not familiar with those discussions, and therefore don’t feel qualified to comment.

MD: You probably know where I stand when it comes to how Google has changed in the past 3 years. Give some advice to the Google employees to save themselves headaches and improve their algorithm without having to beg webmasters to help them.

JW: Actually, I’m not familiar with where you stand on that, sorry! I really don’t understand this question. I’m pretty sure Google employees don’t want nor need my advice for anything. They’re pretty smart dudes and dudettes!

MD: Last but not least. Tell us what you believe has made you so successful and what you are planning to do in the future to remain a leading voice in the Search Engine Marketing industry.

JW: I think one of my talents is in explaining the complicated in a way that the average person can understand. I live and breathe SEO and understand every facet of it. People seem to like reading my stuff and taking my advice because it cuts to the chase and is very common sense advice. While others often make SEO seem more complicated, I boil it down to the essentials. I believe as long as I continue to do that through the High Rankings Advisor newsletter, the High Rankings SEO Forum, and the other communities in which I participate, my voice will continue to be heard in the search marketing industry for quite awhile.