John Doherty's Blog

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 […]

John Doherty