In the first of a brand new series called “In conversation with”, I caught up with first-lady of search engine marketing, Jill Whalen. Regular readers of this irregular (to say the least) e-rag, will probably have figured that Jill and I are buddies. However, we played the whole thing straight for this interview (I only had to edit about four pages of material which wasn’t suitable for my younger readers!)
Jill and I met for a beer in a Boston hotel bar. It was kind of busy and noisy so we moved out through the lobby and into, what looked like, a quieter room. As I approached the bar, I became aware that the girl serving, seemed not to be wearing any clothes. On closer inspection (yes, it was necessary) I realised that she was in fact wearing something… It looked like a necklace, a belt and a pair of shoes!
Feeling largely overdressed for the venue, Jill and I made a hasty departure and met the following morning for coffee…
Mike:
In time honoured fashion, I have to ask you Jill: “How did you get started in the SEO business?”
Jill:
Well, I really just kind of fell into it…
(At this point, an oriental waiter decides to provide Jill with her long awaited coffee and some generally, hard to understand, chit-chat – totally unaware of the fact she’s being interviewed. Following this, Jill cracks up a little and completely loses track of whether we’ve actually started or not!)
Mike:
Let me just have a quick scan for any other low- flying waiters… Nope – okay, the coast looks clear now. So – do you have a technical background then?
Jill:
No, I don’t have a technical background at all. I just basically learned how to create a web site for myself. And then I did a parents room, a parenting web site. And I figured out how to get it ranked high for “parenting chat” [it was a parenting chat room].
Mike:
Was that intentional? Getting it high with search engines for that phrase. I mean did you know what you were doing?
Jill:
Oh yeah. I remember reading about it [search engine optimisation] and then just trying it. I remember figuring it out by looking at what was coming up and looking at the code of other web sites and that kind of thing. You know, just checking it out and figuring stuff like, well I just need to put these words on the page. To me that was always obvious. I learned about meta-tags but it was kind of obvious even then that they weren’t as important. You really had to get the words on the page. So, I just started doing that and then I was designing sites for some other people and started to get theirs ranked high and that’s basically how I started.
Mike:
I think its very interesting that, many people come at this business from a design angle. Whereas with you, it was always about the words. Of course, many people realise now that, in search engine optimisation, words on a page are important because a search engine crawler can’t figure out graphics. So, you were wise to that from the very beginning, yeah?
Jill:
Well to me, once I started looking at how you do it, it was obvious. You know, you have to say: “this page is about this… ” I just started to try and think like, how would a search engine think? They have to figure what’s relevant and what the site’s about. That’s how it’s gonna rank high. So it just kind of made sense. Then you learn about the title tag and other stuff. But, once you get that understanding about the relevancy of the words, it just makes sense.
Mike:
You mentioned meta-tags and pretty much dismissed them right there. Do you still put keywords in meta- tags?
Jill:
I don’t spend much time on it. I mean, for my own pages, I don’t do it at all. However, for my clients, I usually do it because I worry they may think I’m not doing my job if I don’t do it..
.Mike:
[Laughing] Oh right, they only booked you to write the meta-tags…
Jill:
Yeah right. But I’ve been having trouble writing them lately because I don’t know if they’re really gonna make much difference and I’m not sure what to put in them anymore. [laughs] I sometimes just give up and don’t even bother. It often just depends what the page is about. So, anyway, sometimes I use them – sometimes I don’t.
Mike:
Meta-tags is still a pretty drawn out conversation in the search engine marketing field though. Many people [myself included] don’t feel that the meta-keywords tag has any clout at all anymore. The trouble is, you do still feel obliged to put something in them just because they’re there.
Jill:
Right…
Mike:
Simply because they exist you feel obliged to put something in them. But, what I tend to find is, that I have to keep trimming them down when I start work with a new client. New clients say: “The keywords we’re targeting are in our meta-tags.” So, I take a – peek and there’s thousands of them stuffed in there!
Jill:
Oh yeah. I almost always erase what they have in there and then start from scratch again. I do still use the keyword tag. Mainly just to put in misspellings and synonyms, that sort of thing.
Mike:
Do you reckon that, if you stuff your meta-tags with hundreds or thousands of keywords – even though search engines don’t pay so much attention to them – that you can get penalised for that?
Jill:
Hmmm… I would imagine they just ignore it. But I Hear some people say that it may be something that might trip a red light. I’m not really sure about that though.
Mike:
The relationship with search engines. This is something which I’m focusing on a bit more with the third edition of my book. The last edition covered off most of the technology side and debunking a lot of myths. I know that the technology side was very interesting for you and kept you awake late at night avidly reading…
Jill:
[Laughs, feigns yawn and slumps in chair...]
Mike:
Okayyyy – very funny! Anyway, this time, I’m keen to look more at the business side of the industry and in particular the relationship between the search engine marketing community and the search engines themselves. I mean, at one time, search engine optimisation (as it was known then) was viewed very much as the black-art. But these days, you travel all over the world speaking at conferences with the search engines also in attendance. Yourself, Danny Sullivan and other leading experts in the field – so how do you see the relationship now compared to the way it used to be?
Jill:
Obviously, the search engines don’t like people who are trying to trick them in any sort of way. They never have and they still don’t. But, I mean, the things that I’ve always done are all about just, make it the best it can be. That sort of little tagline. It’s always the way that I’ve done it. I don’t think that search engines will ever have a problem with that. It just helps them to be able to find relevant sites a little easier. So that makes sense. I don’t think they’ve ever had a problem with that, or ever will have a problem with people and companies who are just helping to develop more “search engine friendly” sites. You know, just using the right words on a page and such… I think they’re quite happy to get that word out, that this is the way to do it. And, I guess, that’s the main reason that they come to conferences.
Mike:
Or, one could be a little cynical and say that, considering the business model for a search engine wasn’t particularly inspired i.e. a business where they don’t get paid by their end-users – where were they supposed to get revenue? So, it never really surprised me that they started charging for inclusion, or consideration or per click or whatever. It seems to me that, we search engine marketers did get a pretty good free ride from them for a while. Getting a bit of impact on the bottom line is pretty much a priority with search engines. So maybe there is a bit more of a commercial reason for them turning up at conferences – as opposed to just wanting to promote best practice?
Jill:
Sure, that’s definitely got to be some of it because they’ve seen that we’re making all this money by making pages friendly: and what do they get out of it? But if that was really the case, why would Yahoo! bury their directory if the 299 dollars for consideration was so important to them? If it was so important they wouldn’t be burying it. I mean, obviously, it appears that they’re trying to be a better search engine by using Google more. They understand if they want more people to come then they need good results. I think the 299 dollars wasn’t so
important to them and the move away from that has been a step in the right direction. Maybe they’re up to something else but…[laughs]
Mike:
So, the link from Yahoo! is still a very important one to have though. That one link from a major directory does carry some weight. So, nine times out of ten, you’d recommend to a client to pay for the link. Even if you didn’t rank very highly it’s important because it’s seen as an important link by a search engine like Google, for instance.
Jill:
I don’t really recommend that right now at all. I was actually talking to one of the Yahoo! girls just recently and she said to me: “I know you don’t recommend the Yahoo! link right now.” And I said, you know, you have to give me a reason just to link… I mean, I could submit to Joe Ant and Go Guides and those places for a link and I get a decent link for my clients there. But, yeah, if a company is big enough and 299 dollars is just pocket change for them – then sure, go ahead, do it.
Mike:
So, if you had a site which was currently doing well in Google, and therefore doing all right at Yahoo! you simply wouldn’t bother…
Jill:
Yeah. Right.
Mike:
But what about if you’re not doing so well with a client at Google? Do you buy the link then?
Jill:
Weeell… yeah, then it might be something I’d consider. But first I’d do everything else and see how we’re doing. And if we’re not doing any better over at Google then, maybe I’d say alright, let’s buy the link, maybe it’ll help.
Mike:
Do you think, with the purchase of Inktomi, what we’re going to see is prices maybe hiked up a little bit? You know the directory side of yahoo! is there and it’s built. But there’s money in pay for inclusion, so will there be more focus on the crawler side than picking up the odd 299 dollars on the directory side…
Jill:
I don’t really know what they’ll do with Inktomi. There are plenty of theories out there. It seems to me that, by using Google right now they’re getting the best results they can get. And Inktomi, to me, doesn’t have as good or relevant results, so… I think that if they switch to total Inktomi results they may be making a mistake. But I don’t know. It’ll be interesting to see what the real plans are…
Mike:
The plan is to make money…
Jill:
Maybe they’ll integrate both sets of results? I think that may be a move. But we’ll have to wait and see.
Mike:
So – you’ve got your new publication now: The Nitty- gritty of Writing for Search Engines…
Jill:
Yep! My new report.
Mike:
And you’ve been threatening (shall we say) to do this for quite some time. So what eventually got it kick- started the again?
Jill:
You know, suddenly, over the past couple of months, I had so many people asking when it’s due. I had this link on my site saying “click here if you’d like to be notified when it’s ready.” I had a constant trickle of people asking me. But just lately it started building up to five or six enquiries every day. I don’t know whether someone had posted something about it somewhere or what… That’s when I started thinking seriously again. You know, if all these people really want it, I guess I’d better finish it! I mean I was half way through, or maybe even three quarters anyway. I’d just put it to the side because I had so much on with clients and stuff. I figured that, if I just spent a weekend concentrating solely on the report I could get it finished. And that’s what I did!
Mike:
So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. What you’re doing is looking at the way the text is structured on a web page. You’re making sure that you have keywords in all the right places like title tags and such. But it has to be right for a human being to read. This is what I call writing for man and machine. Is that a difficult part as you see it too?
Jill:
Yeah, a little. My report isn’t so much about that view. It’s more about finding places to get those keywords on the page…
Mike:
Those “pesky keywords” as you refer to them [laughs]
Jill:
[Laughing] Yeah that’s right… those pesky keywords on the page! But in a way, it should help you be able to do it in a way that it is pleasing to both humans and search engines. It’s not like a report on copywriting and how to do it. You have to really have good copy to start with. If you don’t have some decent copy to work with then this may not be such a great help. You know, I still suggest you need to hire a copywriter if you can’t do your own. Basically I’m saying it’s not a copywriting book. It is specifically about working the keywords into your existing copy.
Mike:
Keyword research is so important. So what about the actual keywords… I tried “gastric bypass surgery” on all of my pages but it didn’t work for me…
Jill:
[Creases up laughing at this reference to an "in- joke" between us.] Yeah! Well that’s the thing isn’t it? You have to have the RIGHT keywords you idiot! I mean, my report’s not going to be any good to you at all really, if you don’t know the right keywords. So you need to get yourself over to WordTracker and start your research. Of course, I do mention all of this in the report. First of all: find the phrases – not the keywords. Those being the keyword phrases that are the most relevant and specific to your pages…
Mike:
It is pretty pointless trying to chase a single keyword these days. I mean, I get people saying to me: “Mike can you get me to number one at Google for the word ‘money’ or something [bursts out laughing]
Jill:
[Laughing] I know what you mean. Occasionally there are some single keywords which some companies have to chase because, for instance, that ONE word really is the one they need. You know, it’s just something so specific they have to be found on it. In those cases sure, that can be kind of tricky – but, ‘money’ or ‘marketing’ or something as general and so competitive… well… different story.
Mike:
But those words can usually be worked into the copy somewhere, so that it becomes part of the phrase.
Jill:
Right. Sure. And that’s what I recommend and suggest in my report. Let’s do the longer phrases where the important words are included and that’s less difficult.
Mike:
So, what about linkage? Your report is perfect for getting the keywords worked into the copy. It’s clear and concise about that. But what about the next part… the linkage data which is so important… any tips to go with that?
Jill:
Links? Well, yeah, if you can get into the directories, that’s a good place to start. With good directory links you don’t have to be reciprocal. If you can get your keywords, for example phrases that you want to be found on, if you get those actual words in the links: those are the most powerful links. So you want to try and suggest that when you’re requesting links from someone. But as for how do you go about getting links? I don’t really specialise in that at all. In fact, I actually sub- contract that work for my clients. And there are tips and tricks that these link guys know, but… I mean my own feeling is, if you have a great site with great information… my own site has a lot of free information on it with my newsletter archives, so a lot of people link to it. That’s really one of the most powerful ways to get links. You know, going out and asking for links: “I’ll link to you if you link to me” stuff just doesn’t work so well these days. It’s just a case that people are real stingy with their links [laughs]… So, you get these really crappy links…
Mike:
I think a major part of the problem, is simply that, the people you really need to link to you, are your competitors because they’re so “on topic”. But they’re never gonna link to you – ever! And if you do get someone who wants to link to you – they want a link back, so you just end up “diluted”.
Jill:
Yeah, right. Exactly. And yet, it does happen with competitors sometimes. I mean here am I, an SEO consultant with other SEO companies all linking to me because of my newsletter! And so, you know, if I had gone and requested those links: “hey, other SEO company – you wanna link to me?” it would’ve been like, yeah, right, sure, [bursts out laughing] I mean, you could make a kind of directory of say, firms in your industry or something maybe. There’s lots of ways like that. But linkage is hard work. It takes time…
Mike:
Let’s go back to the newsletter for a second here. The newsletter was launched with Heather Lloyd Martin as RankWrite and it became very popular, very quickly. I guess that may have something to do with the appearances you were both making at the search engine strategies conferences. But then you both went your separate ways…
Jill:
Yeah, that was just one year ago, in fact exactly a year ago.
Mike:
So, you’ve had this phenomenal success again as you had to start from scratch – yes?
Jill:
Somewhat. We each kept the same lists, so I still had nine thousand subscribers. Nine thousand one hundred
and fifty seven it was…
Mike:
[Laughing] You couldn’t be a bit more precise here Jill could you?
Jill:
[Laughing] Yeah, well… Anyway, so I still had that list so I just kept on going as if nothing had changed. I was usually in charge of setting the thing up and getting off to be mailed and that sort of thing. It wasn’t that different. Except I didn’t have an article from Heather to put in anymore. And I get a lot of guest articles now anyway…
Mike:
And it’s got a very good reputation as did the last one…
Jill:
Yeah… and over seventeen thousand subscribers now…
Mike:
Really? And, of course, this enormous archive of material . So, I have to ask you: “What’s the most popular question you get asked? What do you get asked more than anything else?
Jill:
Well… it kind of goes in trends really. Right now, the question is multiple sites. You know, multiple domain names. People are so afraid that they’re spamming because they have two or three different domain names for branding purposes, but it’s really just one site with the domains pointing at the same IP or something. I do this myself. I have webwhiz.net which is my old domain name and I also have highrankings.com but it’s the same site. And that’s fine. But I get so many people saying that they’re scared that they’re doing something wrong if they do this. But you know, generally speaking, if you’re not purposefully doing something wrong everything’s usually OK. But they get confused and they hear about multiple domains and mirror sites and that sort of thing and they think: “I’m gonna get banned!” So, I get that quite a lot. In fact, I get that one about ten times a day! [bursts out laughing]
Mike:
So, let’s get to the most important thing here: I want to talk to you about bribery… I hear tell that, all I have to do is send you some chocolates and that’s it… I get the special treatment…
Jill:
[Chuckles to herself] No, no… I answer all the questions the same…
Mike:
Okay Jill, it’s just been fab to spend this time with you. But before we raid you chocolate selection here, tell me what’s planned for the future? I mean, when you first started this stuff, it was a different ball game all together. What do you see happening in the industry for the future?
Jill:
Well there are changes and people are starting to be more specialised within the industry. I’m beginning to find myself in more of a project management kind of role. Right now, most of what I’m doing is site analysis. I do a full report for the client on what the current status of their site is. Then they can take that report and either do the work themselves in-house because the report’s that specific on what “needs” to be done. Or, they can hire me to do the work. And then I put a project team together, like copywriter and researcher and technical back-end guy. Just literally project managing the whole thing. The whole job is much more difficult these days. And apart from anything else, right now I’m doing more writing and speaking and that sort of stuff. Which is good, because that’s what I’m really enjoying at the moment.
Mike:
So, if someone is looking for a high profile search engine marketer to do some consultancy for them they simply go to highrankings.com and fill out the form. And if they want to know where to put those “pesky keywords” – then, same thing, go to highrankings.com and download it. Jill, thanks again for spending the time with me.
Jill:
Mike you’re welcome it’s great to talk to you.
Jill’s helped many, many web site owners to get themselves ranked well in the major search engines. Now you can help yourself to her special report: The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines – Click here:
