Jill Whalen CEO and Founder of High Rankings wrote an interesting article about SEO Expectations in her newsletter, shortly after I posted my SEO post on this site.

It is a sharp read, about being realistic in your SEO campaign. It doesn’t sugarcoat anything, so if you are looking for someone who is going to tell you they can get you to #1 overnight, this is not the place. This is actually why I trust Jill – she doesn’t make false claims, she is realistic about what it takes to get ranked well in the search engines. If you are looking for instant gratification, her article may not do the trick. It will, however, talk about realistic steps to take to make your site rank well consistently!

After reading it, I contacted Jill and asked her if I could mention it here. She promptly gave me permission and sent me a link to where it is posted online. I think it is a great read about setting real expectations for your SEO campaign.

I especially agreed with these comments under the subheading of What Exactly Is Good Content?:

Good content is unique. Really and truly unique. It is creative ideas that simply popped into your head which nobody else in your space has thought of yet…

And it’s (say it with me) making your site the best it can be for your site visitors AND the search engines.

And, be sure to read her section called It’s About Targeted Traffic, Not Rankings - which starts with:

As we move forward in this industry, webmasters, site owners, and SEOs need to shift their focus from asking how they can get this keyword to this position in this engine to how they can get more targeted traffic and convert it into customers.

Read Jill’s full article called Setting Realistic SEO Expectations and consider signing up for her newsletter at her HighRankings.com site. I’ve been reading her newsletter for years and she definitely knows what she writes about. So, for a realistic and authoritative view into SEO, I highly recommend her.

There are a couple of other people I recommend for SEO, too, so let me know if you need other recommendations.

I look forward to hearing what you think of Jill’s article, so please comment below.