John Doherty

12 Dec

John Doherty Posted in Uncategorized 2 comments

You Need an Online Marketing Strategy

In November I went to a meetup that was put together by a couple of friends of mine who are doing a startup that I think has some real potential. The title of the meetup was “Establishing Your Online Presence”. What struck me, though, was that not many people understand how to launch their online presence. The two people who spoke, who are both wonderful people who are doing cool things with technology, were both struggling to figure out how to get people to use their (I think) extremely helpful offerings.

If you are in the same boat, allow me offer you some things to think about that might benefit you.

Social is about Traffic and Conversions, NOT Rankings

Listen up search marketers. Listen up good. I’ve got something to say.

The goal of social is to drive traffic, conversions, and brand loyalty, NOT rankings.

Many of the most socially shared posts on SEOmoz are focused around social and how social affects rankings. Just look at this graph, showing you the disparity in sharing between the social and non-social posts (with outliers removed that skewed the data unnecessarily):

Posts having to do with social get 63% more tweets and 61% more Facebook activity on average. WOW.

29 Nov

John Doherty Posted in Search Engine Optimization 8 comments

Awesome Ways to Build Website Wireframes

I am often needing to create wireframes for clients during technical site audits. Maybe you’re an SEO consultant or analyst as well, or you want to have a site developed and need to show your developer how you would like the site organized.

I’d like to share a couple of cool tools with you that I find extremely useful when building wireframes of existing sites as well as creating new wireframe mockups for sites to be developed.

Should I use a Rel=Canonical or 301 Redirect?

There seems to be a lot of confusion in the world of SEO today, especially in clients minds and with their technical teams, about when to use a 301 redirect and when to use the rel=canonical tag. My goal with today’s post is to explain the differences and talk through some of the nuances to help you think through which one pertains to your situation. Every situation is different, so take the time to read and figure out which is better for you.

17 Nov

John Doherty Posted in Technical SEO 37 comments

Lessons from Google about URL Lengths

A few weeks ago, I was reading through some posts on the official Google blogs, such as InsideSearch, WebmasterCentral, and the GoogleBlog. I was taking notes and sharing a few links via the Tweeters, and while doing such I noticed a link like this:

Search queries data is....what?

13 Nov

John Doherty Posted in Search Engine Optimization 5 comments

SEO: It’s all about the Content. And everything else.

We hear frequently that “content is king”, which I am coming to believe more and more, but the more that I come to believe that Content is King, I realize that content is nothing without other stuff done right. If you have a site with incredible content that deserves to rank, yet your site is terrible, you don’t deserve to rank. This is a waste of awesome.

08 Nov

John Doherty Posted in Search Engine Optimization 4 comments

SEO Facepalms: Don’t Hide Content Behind Javascript

Arguably one of the worst mistakes that can be made with a website is hiding content (inadvertently, not in a cloaking way) from search engines. Since on-page SEO and quality content have become larger ranking factors in the past 2 years (and especially since Panda first rolled out in February), we have to make sure that content is quality and visible.

For optimal SEO benefit, do not develop a site in Flash. And, do not hide content behind Javascript or other code.

05 Nov

John Doherty Posted in Search Engine Optimization 4 comments

#Searchlove New York Recap – Day 2

*If you haven’t read it, check out the Searchlove Day 1 Recap before reading this post*

Searchlove New York day 2 started out with a bang. People rolled in looking a bit bedraggled, but mostly none the worse for wear, from the previous night’s Halloween party. If you want to see pictures of some of SEO’s finest looking great in Halloween costumes (we had Steve Zizzou, Buzz Lightyear, a cowboy with a horse, and Waldo, just to name a few), check them out here:

Potter and Zissou — Chad Burgess (Harry) and Rand Fishkin (Steve Zissou)

#Searchlove New York Recap – Day 1

The first ever Distilled Searchlove conference in New York City happened on Monday and Tuesday, the 31st of October and 1st of November. Being a Distilled employee in New York, I was privileged to attend the entire conference and to get to lead a table on Panda First Aid as well, which I hope was beneficial to everyone who attended. Aside from the parties (which are always awesome), the content was top-notch. I am consistently blown away by the amount I learn at conferences, and this one did not disappoint.

In the past I’ve recapped Linklove, which almost killed me, ProSEO Boston, and Mozcon (which also almost killed me). For this one, even though I live tweeted the whole conference (which almost killed my fingers), I’m not going to do a full recap. Instead, I want to follow suit in something that Will Critchlow has taught me and give you some actionable bits and bobs from each talk.

Let’s rock and roll.

30 Oct

John Doherty Posted in Miscellany 4 comments

Personal Websites – Why every SEO should have one

I think that every SEO should develop their own website. I don’t care if it’s an SEO blog, a travel blog, a site about your cat, or a tribute to Metallica.

My argument is:

In order to be a decent SEO and to be able to stay current as SEO becomes more and more technical, you need to have a place to test out ideas that you otherwise may not be able to do on client sites (for ethical or practical reasons, such as making changes yourself/quickly).

Beginner’s Guide to the .HTACCESS File

Linkbuilding gets all of the love in the SEO community, but we often forget that technical SEO is the solid foundation upon which linkbuilding and SEO are built. If you don’t have your information architecture, redirects, and solid code in place, a lot of your efforts will be wasted.

Today I want to talk about the .htaccess file. There are many ways to implement 301 redirects (remember that 302 temporary redirects are bad news), but if you are using an Apache server, the best way to implement a redirect server-side is via the .htaccess file.

Note: if you’re not hosting on your own server, you must check with your hosting provider. Some hosting providers, such as Bluehost, will help you out with redirects, or at least redirecting a domain you bought for ORM reasons.

26 Oct

John Doherty Posted in Search Engine Optimization 7 comments

Meta Tags that will NOT help SEO

Sometimes as I am browsing through the Interwebs, I come across something that dumbfounds me. Sometimes this dumbfoundery is completely blatant and in plain sight. Other times, however, the goodness is hidden beneath the surface.

I’m talking about hidden gems within the code that someone read somewhere would help them out with SEO on their site. And while I wish I was kidding about these following incredible meta descriptions, I am not.

Hear me loud and clear folks:

These following meta descriptions actually exist in the wild of the Internet and do not help your SEO. Do not use them on your website.

Now that I have that off my chest, here are some amazing meta tags that I have found on the Internet.

My Top 5 Personal Productivity Tips and Tools

Productivity. We all hear about it constantly and know that we should take steps to make our lives more productive in the time set aside to do so, so that we can enjoy the time where we do not need to be productive. Or, so that we can actually have free time.

I used to to be a productivity loser, but over the past few months have become much more of a productivity ninja. One important thing to note is that everyone is going to need to find what works for them, but here are some of the shortcuts and tools that I use to keep my inbox under control, my writing and drafts synchronized, and my priorities straight.

Google inbox shortcuts

17 Oct

John Doherty Posted in Miscellany 45 comments

On Being Afraid of Failure

Can I take a minute to write a personal post on here? This blog is usually all about SEO tactics, but today I’ve been doing some thinking and reflecting.

I come from a family that is really smart and well educated. I mean really smart and really well educated. My father has his PhD in institutional analysis. My mother is working on her second Masters degree, this one as a mathematics specialist. My older brother is in a fully funded MD/PhD program at Baylor College of Medicine, and my younger brother is a genius who will one day be an ambassador or something to a foreign country, helping to keep our country safe.

And I have a Bachelors degree from James Madison University in Virginia (a good state school). I work for the best SEO consultancy in the world, hang out with some awesomely smart people, and am trying to make waves in New York City.

And guess what?

I’m petrified of failure.

17 Oct

John Doherty Posted in Excel for SEO 3 comments

Here’s a Paid Links Backlink Profile Visualized

While I’ve posted a few times about SEO Excel spreadsheets, and I’ve used link profiles a couple of times in blog posts, I’ve never been able to show what a backlink profile full of backlinks looks like. Back to the beginning A healthy backlink profile is one that has links of all types. It is […]

Author: John Doherty