High Rankings CEO, Jill Whalen, writes prolifically on SEO topics. She has monthly columns at Search Engine Land, as well as at TalentZoo. High Rankings articles are often requested and published at additional internet marketing websites around the globe.
You may want to read our search marketing articles that we publish here on the High Rankings website, as well.
 | Nov. 5, 2009 - Making something optimal by its very nature is going to be hard work. Being the best you can be at your job, your schoolwork, your relationships, or anything else is not easy. Very few people, if any, will ever be optimized, or perfect. The same is true for websites. But that shouldn’t stop you from attempting to be optimized. Let’s step outside of the online world for a moment and look at a real life situation where it pays to be optimized. Read More >> |
 | Oct 8, 2009 - I recently read an article by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, entitled “Terrible SEO Advice: Focus on Users, Not Engines” that could potentially set SEO back at least at decade, in my opinion. If you listen to this advice, your SEO will be fatally flawed from the get-go. Here's why Choosing Search Engines Over Users A Fatal Flaw In SEO.
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 | November 11, 2009 --Where does this leave the person or company who needs an SEO consultant, but doesn't know whom to trust? One SEO tells them something, and then another tells them something completely different. Who is right? Who is wrong? Whom should they hire? Whom should they beware of? Here are 5 SEO consultant red flags to watch out for. Read More >> |
 | Sept 10, 2009 - SEO is confusing to many. It’s shrouded in mystery, often has a bad reputation and is not generally understood by traditional marketers. Heck, it’s not even understood by website developers nor some who sell SEO as a service. Yet SEO is nothing more or less than an additional marketing channel for your business. Let me explain, with a story: Organic SEO As Another Marketing Channel.
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 | September 16, 2009 -- A guarantee in SEO is one of those double-edged swords. On the one hand a guarantee seems like it should be the norm. After all, if your SEO company is confident in their abilities, why can’t they provide some guarantee that says they’ll do what they say they can do? On the other hand, rankings in the search engines are not static. You might have a ranking for a specific keyword phrase one minute (or when checking via one computer) and the next minute it’s gone. Does that count towards your guarantee or not? Read the entire article: Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings?
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 | Aug 13, 2009 - As I write this, I’m on vacation in the Russian River Valley of Sonoma County, CA. While this won’t be 100% organic SEO as is usually the topic, I’ll try my best to tie some of my vacation experiences to the SEO world, and to business in general. here are 3 things I learned from my vacation that kinda sorta relate to business and SEO:3 Things I Learned About Business On My Summer Vacation.
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 | July 22, 2009 -- If you think that having your keyword phrases “in all the right places for SEO” is a good thing, think again! Stuff that worked like a charm for many people in the early years of SEO may actually hurt rather than help now. Unfortunately, there’s just no magic formula for SEO. For as long as I’ve been doing SEO (over 14 years now), I’ve had it in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t want to tip off the engines that my sites were SEO’d. This is one of the reasons I’ve never used keyword-rich domain names since that’s an obvious SEO tip-off. Read the entire article: No Magic SEO Formula
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 | July 16, 2009 - If you’ve read any of my articles on SEO over the years, you know my pet peeve. It’s the wasted time and money spent to perform useless SEO parlor tricks that have little-to-no effect on the bottom line. Read Is Most Of SEO Just A Boondoggle? at Search Engine Land.
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 | June 3, 2009 - Sales are down for many businesses due to the slow economy. Business owners and CEOs are looking for that one thing that can pull them through the hard times and keep them afloat. When times get tough, many turn to search engine optimization, hoping that it will be the ticket to increased sales. While SEO is almost always a good idea, if you're counting on it to save a failing business, you may want to rethink things. The Time for SEO is Before You Need it! at TalentZoo Read More >> |
 | May 21, 2009 - A few months ago, I was quoted by Google’s Matt Cutts as saying that “website developers keep SEOs in business.” While I don’t mean to say that ALL website designers/developers believe or do all of these things, you’ll likely encounter many who have done or believe in some of these. Read 85 Reasons Why Website Designers/Developers Keep SEOs in Business at Search Engine Land.
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 | May 6, 2009 - Your goal with Twitter is not to directly gain links, but to be where people are already talking about your industry, participating in the conversation, and making them aware that you and your company exist. It's almost the opposite of SEO. Participating in the Twitter Conversation for Fun and Profit at TalentZoo Read More >> |
 | April 23, 2009 - I’ve previously discussed why rankings are a poor measure of success, but only touched upon how to instead use web analytics to measure SEO success. My hope is that once you have a good grasp of what to review and how to use that info, you’ll be more inclined to wean yourself (and your clients) off rankings reports once and for all! Read Using Analytics To Measure SEO Success at Search Engine Land.
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 | April 2, 2009 - While it would be great if you could just throw up a website and start attracting visitors and search engines, it just doesn't work that way. You have to prepare your website to work the way it should for the people who visit it, as well as for the search engines that index it. Preparing Your Website for Optimal User and SEO Performance at TalentZoo Read More >> |
 | March 6, 2009 - It seems that once a year for the past five years or so, a search engine representative will stand up at a conference and announce that they are now indexing Flash. Website designers jump with glee, and SEOs lament that all the work they did educating their clients on why they need to curb their use of Flash will be for naught. Read Are The Search Engines Really Indexing Flash? at Search Engine Land.
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 | February 20, 2009 - As with anything you set out to learn in life, you don't get from point A to point Z without touching upon all those letters in between. This is why every day for the past 7 or 8 years I see the same search engine optimization questions asked over and over again by people in the various stages of learning. The search engines may change through the years, but people just finding out about SEO all tend to go through a similar growth process. The 8 Stages to Learning SEO at TalentZoo Read More >> |
 | February 5, 2009 - Jill provides a list of SEO questions that she gets asked all the time, along with what the answer depends upon, and then a quick answer based on the various factors that might be involved Read The Answer To All Your SEO Questions! at Search Engine Land.
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 | January 23, 2009 - Every day I hear from companies who have recently had their websites redesigned, and now suddenly their search engine rankings and traffic have tanked. While it’s normal to see some fluctuation after a redesign, there’s no reason why your site should have to start over from scratch—that is—if the development company knows what they’re doing. Read When SEO is Put into the Wrong Hands at TalentZoo Read More >> |
 | January 8, 2009 - In January of 2008, I issued my predictions for the upcoming year in the SEO industry. Now that it’s a year later, let’s look back and see how I did. Read Jill Whalen's SEO Trends From 2008 & A Look Into 2009 at Search Engine Land.
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 | December 12, 2008 - Nearly every day I hear from newsletter subscribers, forum posters, and potential clients who've been charged with the task of learning how to optimize their company's website to gain more targeted search engine traffic, but they simply don't know where to begin or the best way to go about it. Read Learning Opportunities in the Search Marketing Industry Read More >> |
 | December 4, 2008 - Usability and SEO going hand-in-hand makes total sense when you think about it. What makes a website better for your site visitors should also make a site better for SEO because the search engines want to find the pages that are the best for their visitors-the searchers. Read Jill Whalen's Why Usability and SEO Go Hand-in-hand at Search Engine Land.
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 | November 14, 2008 - It seems that every day a new SEO software tool comes out that promises to help your site get top rankings in the search engines with the click of a button. If only it were true! Read SEO Software for High Rankings Read More >> |
 | November 7, 2008 - The level-playing field of the Internet and seeing what
smaller companies are able to do with SEO have caused many big brands
to start taking notice. The problem is that SEOing a big brand site is
not the same thing as optimizing an ecommerce site. Read Jill Whalen's SEO for Big Brands at Search Engine Land.
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 | October 10, 2008 - a summary of what was previously discussed in the Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze series, as well as a few more tips thrown in for good measure – all of which should help get you to the top of the search engines if you really work at it.
Read Ten SEO Tips to Keep in Mind Read More >> |
 |  October 9, 2008 - Performing a complete website redesign is a lot of work and a daunting process. Whether you want to keep your existing rankings and targeted search engine traffic, or you are using your redesign process to get started on a new SEO campaign, there are a number of best practices to keep in mind. Read Jill's 100% Organic Search Engine Land article on Best Practices During a Website Redesign for more.
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 | September 11, 2008 - In this Search Engine Land 100% Organic article, Jill discusses why it's critical that everyone in the search marketing industry use correct terminology when discussing what we do. Read it here: Stop the Confusion! Use SEO Terms Correctly Read More >> |
 | September 12, 2008 - This is the 8th installment of Jill's "Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze" series at TalentZoo. Read this article to learn how you can work successfully with your SEO agency. Read More >> |
 | Aug. 14, 2008 - In this Search Engine Land 100% Organic article, Jill explains points out 6 common website mistakes she sees all the time when reviewing websites for the High Rankings SEO training classes. Read it here: 6 Common Website Mistakes Read More >> |
 | August 8, 2008 - This is the 7th installment of Jill's "Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze" series at TalentZoo. Read this article to learn how to measure your SEO success. Read More >> |
 | July 17, 2008 - In this Search Engine Land article, Jill talks about the various things people do to create a less than worthwhile blog. Read it here: 3 Types Of Blogs That Totally Suck Read More >> |
 | July 7, 2008 - This is the 6th installment of Jill's "Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze" series at TalentZoo. Read this article to learn how to attract targeted visitors and links! Read More >> |
 | June 13, 2008 - This is the 5th installment of Jill's "Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze" series at TalentZoo. Read this article to learn how to write keyword rich copy that your site visitors will love! Read More >> |
 | May 22, 2008 - In this Search Engine Land 100% Organic article, Jill explains how Google's Site: Operator works to help you sort out certain technical issues your website might be having. Read More >> |
 | May 16, 2008 - This is the 4th installment of Jill's "Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze" series at TalentZoo. Read this article to learn how to write marvelous Meta description tags! Read More >> |
 | Apr. 24, 2008 - In this Search Engine Land 100% Organic article, Jill asks if your website is sick and shows you one way of diagnosing it by using Google's text cache. Read More >> |
 | Apr. 18, 2008 - This is the 3rd installment of Jill's "Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze" series at TalentZoo. Read this article to learn how to create terrific Title tags! Read More >> |
 | Mar. 27, 2008 - In this Search Engine Land 100% Organic article, Jill weighs in on the SEO Standards debate. Read More >> |
 | Mar. 21, 2008 - This is the 2nd installment of Jill's "Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze" series at TalentZoo. Read this article to learn how to create a keyword phrase map for SEO. Read More >> |
 | Feb. 28, 2008 - Pretend you don't know anything about what your company offers and you stumbled onto it somehow. Can you tell immediately what it's all about? Can the search engines? Do this exercise with each inner page of the site as well. Is what each page has to offer truly crystal clear? Read More >> |
 | Feb. 22, 2008 - This is the 1st of Jill's "Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze" series at TalentZoo. Read this article to learn how to find the best keyword phrases for your website. Read More >> |
 | Jan. 31, 2008 - Are you still measuring your SEO success by the rankings you obtain? If so, you need to stop—right now! Learn why rankings are a poor measure of SEO success. Read More >> |
 | Jan. 25, 2008 - Have you been held hostage by a search engine optimization (SEO) or search marketing company who claims that your search engine rankings will tank as soon as you stop paying them their monthly fee? If so, you'll want to read Jill's article about the dirty little secret of the SEO industry right now! Read More >> |
 | Jan. 3, 2008 - Jill writes about how SEO has changed in the decade-plus that she has been optimizing websites for search engine success. Read More >> |
 | Dec. 12, 2007 - There are many misconceptions about search engine optimization (SEO) that have sprung up over the years. In this article for ecommerce-guide.com, Jill Whalen shares five on-page tactics that professional SEO companies use to drive the most targeted search engine traffic possible to their clients' Web sites. Read More >>
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 | Oct. 25, 2007 - Looking at the latest search marketing conference agendas, articles, and online news in the SEM space, it certainly appears that social media marketing and networking are the wave of the future. But is it? Jill looks at whether social media is indeed the new SEO. Read More >> |
 | Sep. 27, 2007 - Sometimes I think SEOs have lost the plot. Not all SEOs, mind you, but many, especially the newbies. It’s like they don’t understand the reason for doing the SEO things that they know they need to do. In this article, Jill explains how SEO is all about using your own brain. Read More >> |
 | Aug. 30, 2007 - SEO myths get crazier every year. Some are based partially in reality, and others have spread because it's often difficult to prove what particular SEO action caused a resulting search engine reaction. Jill provides Search Engine Land readers with her top 10 organic SEO myths. Read More >> |
 | Aug. 2, 2007 - Here’s a quick test for you. Don’t worry, it’s only one question. True or false: Today’s SEO techniques could be tomorrow’s search engine spam with one turn of the algo crank. Learn what Jill thinks about over-optimization and more in this Search Engine Land article. Read More >> |
 | Jul. 12, 2007 - The title of this Search Engine Land article, pretty much speaks for itself! Learn why Jill believes that keyword stuffing is gross and disgusting! Read More >> |
 | Jun. 21, 2007 - One common mistake I've seen SEOs make since the dawn of search engines is tweaking their pages every time a change in ranking occurs. Learn why it's important to keep your faith when Google's algorithm changes. Read More >> |
 | May. 31, 2007 - Learn why Jill believes that writing content just because you think it's what the search engines want is really no different from spamming the search engines, and why you can't fake real content. Read More >> |
 | May. 10, 2007 - Are you worrying about the little things that you think you need to do for SEO? You may be unneccessarily sweating the small SEO stuff. Read More >> |
 | Mar. 15, 2007 - One of the most prevalent misnomers being bandied about is the phrase "duplicate content penalty." I'm here to tell you that there is no such thing as a search engine penalty for duplicate content. At least not the way many people believe there is. Read More >> |
 | 2005 - In this Successful-Sites article, Jill reviews SEO spam techniques such as keyword stuffing, hidden text, doorway pages that should be avoided at all costs. Read More >> |
