I was browsing through some of my old web site blog archives and found this interview I did with Jill Whalen of HighRankings.com – one of the pioneers of SEO. I got somewhat of a chuckel out of it (laughing at myself) so here it is…
Jill Whalen Interview!!!
I had the opportunity to interview one of the great SEOs; Jill Whalen! For those who don’t know, Jill she is the founder of an exceptional search engine marketing resource website and forum HighRankings.com. Enough of me here is my interview with Jill..
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience with SEO.
Well, my 12 years doing SEO professionally provide me with more experience than nearly anyone else in the SEO industry today. There is rarely a search engine optimization problem that I haven’t seen before or cannot solve. As I’ve been freely sharing my SEO methods with others in the industry, the approach to SEO that I’ve developed over the years has become the industry standard for search marketing companies across the world. It’s always cool when people email me to tell me that they got their start in SEO because of my newsletter! (The High Rankings Advisor.)
Do you think that web design and search engine marketing should be separate fields or do you think it’s important that web designers also be familiar with SEO?
They are definitely separate fields as there’s too much to know with either of them to be an expert at both. That said, designers/developers should definitely understand minimally how to create a “crawler-friendly” website. And SEOs should minimally understand HTML code so that they can spot any potential programming problems.
Tell us a little bit about High Rankings. Why is it such a great resource for those with little to high experience levels with SEO?
The High Rankings Advisor newsletter and High Rankings Search Engine Optimization forum are chock-full of great information. The newsletter generally addresses SEO issues that are on lots of people’s minds, while the forum is a great place to ask a specific question and receive answers from our expert moderators. SEO isn’t rocket science, and between those two things, anyone can learn what they need to know to optimize their own website. And for those who decide they don’t have the time or inclination to learn it all, they can simply hire High Rankings.
Do you attend or speak at any search engine marketing workshops or conferences?
Yes, I have been speaking at the Search Engine Strategies conferences for 6 or 7 years now. I’m also speaking at WebmasterWorld’s PubCon this December. Plus, I have been hosting the High Rankings Seminars since 2002, and I often do mini-seminars/conferences in-house at various companies around the world. I recently came back from one of those in Germany, in fact!
If you could pick out the top three most important factors involved with SEO what would they be?
1. Keyword Research
2. The words on the Page and in the Title Tags
3. Having something worth linking to, and then getting the word out about it.
What are the top five search engine marketing conferences you would recommend attending and why?
Well, the conferences I mentioned above are all I can really recommend as I haven’t been to others. I’m actually not a conference go-er myself as I can only learn by doing. Many people can learn with someone standing in front of them teaching them stuff, but I’m just not one of them!
What are your thoughts on the direction of Web 2.0 technologies with regards to SEO?
Web 2.0 technologies (like AJAX) are extremely cool and useful. Unfortunately, they’re not search engine friendly at this time. If you want to use those technologies on your site, you’ll want to be sure you have alternate content for the search engine crawlers to be able to index as well.
Does page rank really matter? Would you suggest that SEOs and business owners strive for a higher page rank?
Real PageRank—the formula Google uses to calculate the number and importance of pages and links—is a very important part of Google’s overall ranking algorithm. But, the PageRank that you see on the Google toolbar is not important in the least. It’s only updated a couple of times a year, and it doesn’t actually tell you the importance of a page. Striving for a higher PageRank is an awful silly goal since PageRank in and of itself doesn’t get you anywhere. Striving to create an awesome website, striving to gain more targeted traffic and ultimately more conversions—those are what you should be putting your time into.
What’s your position on subdomain spam? By this I mean when you search in Google for a specific keyword and the majority of the results turn a specific website utilizing a handful of different sub domains.
I don’t actually see this all that much anymore, but that is definitely something worth reporting to Google when you see it as it denigrates the search results for everybody, and they would want to know about it. (They may or may not take action, but it doesn’t hurt to let them know.) There’s usually a link near the bottom of any search results page that says “Dissatisfied? Help Us Improve,” which is the best place to report bad search results.
Last! Do you offer SEO services? How might someone get in contact with you that is interested in your expertise?
Yes, I sure do! Even now, as High Rankings has grown beyond just me, I continue to take a hands-on approach with our clients to ensure that they receive the expert advice and recommendations necessary to achieving their search marketing goals. People can contact me through the High Rankings website at http://www.highrankings.com/.
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