Status 200 Expert Found: Interview with Clarissa Filius

Who are you, and where do you work as an SEO specialist?

My name is Clarissa Filius, and I’m the SEO Lead at iO. iO is an agency with over 2,000 employees and offices in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Bosch, Rotterdam, Antwerp, and other locations. I now have 12 years of experience in SEO.

How did you first get into SEO?

I first heard the term SEO during my graduation internship at a cooking studio, but I didn’t really get into it until I started working as an SEO copywriter at Sanoma (now DPG). At the time, I wrote SEO copy (packed with keywords) for a number of websites, which worked just fine back then. I soon ended up on the editorial team at tuinieren.nl, where I had a lot of freedom to work with the team to build out the platform. When I noticed we were achieving good results, I started delving deeper and deeper into SEO. I learned a lot from the specialists in the SEO department there.

Eventually, tuinieren.nl grew into the largest gardening platform in the Netherlands, and we ranked #1 for search terms like “pruning hydrangeas.” That’s when my passion for SEO really took off. I then started working as a freelancer for all kinds of other brands within Sanoma (including vtwonen, Flair, Ouders van Nu, and Kieskeurig) and beyond (including Honeywell and Philips). Tuinieren.nl has since been merged into vtwonen.nl, but the content and videos we created back then are still appearing in Google search results 12 years later.

After about six years of freelancing, I started working at the agency Booming (now iO). At Booming, I worked with Peter van der Graaf, from whom I learned an incredible amount. I already had a fair amount of knowledge, but it wasn’t until then that I really began to understand SEO.

Have you chosen a specialization within SEO, and if so, why?

I find all aspects of SEO interesting, such as technical SEO, content, link building, and UX/CRO. That said, I think most people know me as a specialist in local SEO. That’s because I regularly give presentations, host webinars, and record podcasts on this topic. This is mainly because I’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of projects for larger (international) retailers. In addition, it’s a relatively overlooked aspect of SEO, even though the volume of local searches and the use of navigation apps like Google Maps is enormous. So you could say that local SEO is my specialty. However, this is by no means the only thing I do; in my day-to-day work, I focus on all aspects of SEO. I still find SEO migrations the most interesting and challenging, because they involve every aspect of SEO.

How have you seen SEO change over the past few years?

In my first 10 years of doing SEO, not much changed—the basics remained pretty much the same. What did change, though, was that the competition got tougher. When I first started with SEO, you could still get away with “keyword stuffing” and use it to achieve good rankings fairly easily, especially if your domain already had some authority. As SEO grew in popularity, at some point it took more than that to stay ahead of the competition.

In general, I didn’t worry much about Google updates and focused mainly on the basics. In recent years, developments have been moving a lot faster! With algorithm updates bringing about major changes, the introduction of E-E-A-T guidelines, and, of course, recent developments in AI search.

How do you make sure you stay up to date on trends?

I regularly attend meetups and conferences, and I follow other experts on Twitter (now “X”) or LinkedIn. By the way, “X” is becoming less and less relevant, and BlueSky is the new place to follow SEO experts. As far as I’m concerned, networking is and always will be the best way to stay up to date on new developments. Talking with other experts in the field is especially helpful for staying informed about what’s going on. By the way, for me it’s not about following “trends,” but more about sharing knowledge.

Which SEO trends are you currently capitalizing on?

Ultimately, it’s important to focus on what works rather than just following trends. In most cases, this means laying a solid foundation—such as high-quality content, technical expertise, and authority. Of course, there are certain new developments that are important for many brands, such as E-E-A-T. In addition, I’m experimenting with AI search engines and am increasingly incorporating social search (including TikTok) into my strategies.

What do you think will be the biggest challenge for SEO in the future?

That’s always hard to say—unfortunately, I don’t have a crystal ball. However, it’s clear that the impact of AI search will be the biggest challenge. We need to adapt to this and, above all, keep a close eye on its effects. Whether this will significantly change what we do in practice remains to be seen.

You spend a lot of time sharing information, including on LinkedIn. What motivates you to do that?

I’ve always found the information shared by other SEOs in the community to be very helpful. That’s why I’m happy to contribute here and share the knowledge I have with others.

Do you have an example of a recent case or project you’re proud of?

Yes! One of the projects I’m proud of is the Local SEO Benchmark Report. It’s a report in which we analyzed 100,000 business profiles. This was made possible thanks to the efforts of Robin van der Sar and Michel Kant (Flipstream) and, of course, iO. We worked on this as a whole team, and it turned out to be an incredibly cool report. We had the opportunity to launch it at a Local SEO Event attended by many major players (including Zeeman and HEMA).

Are you also exploring the relationship between SEO and other marketing channels?

You can’t ignore that! I’ve been working on the interplay with CRO for years. I gave a presentation on this at BrightonSEO in 2021. After all, SEO traffic is useless if it doesn’t convert. That’s why I work closely with my CRO colleagues to jointly establish best practices. It’s also always important to seek out synergies with SEA and, these days, increasingly with social media teams as well.

Have you ever completely failed at SEO?

Early in my SEO career, I modified the permalinks on a fairly large website to improve the URL structure of a new section of the site. That went wrong, and the website went completely offline. That was a huge shock. Fortunately, I was able to fix it right away by reverting the change.

In your opinion, what type of business presents the greatest challenge in SEO, and why?

Markets such as the (online) casino industry are the most challenging. However, I have not worked in that field myself. From a technical standpoint, large e-commerce platforms are particularly challenging, and in terms of competition, the insurance industry is the most challenging.

If you could debunk one SEO myth, which one would it be and why?

The duplicate content myth. People still say that duplicate content issues will result in a Google penalty. That’s not true, though it can cause Google to have trouble determining which page to display, resulting in the wrong page being shown. It can also have a negative impact on the crawl budget, but that only applies to large websites. Furthermore, keyword cannibalization and duplicate content issues are often confused with one another, even though they are actually two different problems.

What is the most important piece of advice you’d like to share with other SEO specialists?

My main piece of advice is: keep testing on your own. If you want to get better at SEO, it’s important to experiment. You learn the most through hands-on experience, not by reading online blogs and articles. In addition, networking with other SEO professionals is very valuable—that’s when they share the insights that really matter.