Ann Smarty - Practical Ecommerce

Articles by: Ann Smarty

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Ann Smarty

Ann Smarty is the brand and community manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas and the founder of Viral Content Bee. Ann's search engine optimization career began in 2010. She is the former editor-in-chief of Search Engine Journal and contributor to prominent search and social blogs, including Small Business Trends and Mashable.

Ann is also a frequent speaker at Pubcon and host of the Twitter chat #vcbuzz.

On-page SEO
HowTo Schema: Guidelines, Tools, Tips

March 21, 2023 • Ann Smarty

HowTo Schema on instructional web pages can generate rich snippets in organic search results, elevating visibility and click-throughs.
SEO Tools
3 Tools to Create SEO Content Briefs

March 14, 2023 • Ann Smarty

SEO content briefs can ensure an article is helpful to humans and optimized for search engines. Here are key elements of a brief and tools to help create it.
SEO Tools
ChatGPT for SEO Content

March 9, 2023 • Ann Smarty

ChatGPT can kick out endless content. Should search engine optimizers use it?
Influencers & Affiliates
How Affiliates Address Google’s Product Review Updates

February 27, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Affiliates sometimes post less-than-helpful reviews of the products they're promoting to garner organic search traffic. Google is cracking down.
Keyword Research
SEO: 3 Tools to Find Related Keywords

February 22, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Google has long relied on semantic search — producing results based on the intent of the query. Optimizing content for many intent-based keywords can improve rankings.
SEO Tools
Tools to Create, Optimize Meta Descriptions

February 16, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Meta descriptions do not influence organic rankings. But the descriptions appear in search snippets more often than not and thus impact clicks on organic listings.
On-page SEO
SEO: Canonical Tags Dos and Don’ts

February 8, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Canonical tags can help Google, Bing, and other search engines resolve duplicate content conflicts. But the tag is only a hint, and search engines may ignore it. Here's our guide for using canonicals.
On-page SEO
Readability for SEO: Myths and Reality

February 2, 2023 • Ann Smarty

A metric for the readability of an article is imprecise and often inaccurate. And there's no evidence that readability is a direct Google ranking factor.
SEO Tools
5 Ways to Use ChatGPT for SEO

January 26, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Google thus far disallows AI-generated content in its index. But the SEO benefit of ChatGPT and similar tools is increased productivity, not producing entire articles.
SEO Tools
Using Google Cache for SEO

January 19, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Google cache is a repository of billions of archived web pages. Analyzing a page's cache version can help optimize it for organic rankings. Here's how.
Link Building
SEO: Can Google Crawl Your Links?

January 12, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Links remain a key ranking factor for Google. But not all links are accessible. Here's how to confirm whether Google can crawl links on your site.
Technical SEO
SEO: How to Index a Page in Google

January 5, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Adding web pages to its index is Google's first step in evaluating rankings. Here's how to ensure indexation and speed it up when necessary.
SEO Tools
How to Use Web Crawlers for SEO

December 22, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Web crawler tools are essential for search engine optimization, but the info they provide can be overwhelming. Here's how to prioritize and cut through the clutter.
Link Building
How to Find an Author’s Email for Link Building

December 15, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Backlinks remain a key organic search ranking factor in Google. But obtaining those links is hard work. It starts with author outreach.
SEO Tools
3 Tools to Identify SEO Competitors

December 8, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Identifying competitors for organic search rankings is more difficult than it appears, potentially involving thousands of keywords and a slew of domains.
On-page SEO
SEO and Out-of-stock Product Pages

November 30, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Product pages for out-of-stock items retain backlinks and organic traffic. But they frustrate and alienate shoppers. That's the dilemma.
On-page SEO
How to Fix Orphan Pages for SEO

November 24, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Pages with no internal backlinks can harm overall organic search rankings. Here's how to discover, analyze, and fix orphan and near-orphan pages.
On-page SEO
SEO and Interstitials

November 17, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Popups on a website drive email signups and revenue. They can also disrupt users' experiences, running afoul of Google's ranking algorithms.
Technical SEO
SEO: Answer Boxes vs. Featured Snippets

November 10, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Featured snippets are traffic generators. Answer boxes are not. Here's the difference.
SEO
Anatomy of Google’s Organic Search Snippets

November 3, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Google's standard organic snippets have evolved over the years, but three elements remain constant: title, URL, and description. Here's how to optimize them for more clicks.
SEO Tools
SEO Tools for Assessing Used Domain Names

October 27, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Buying a second-hand domain name can be risky for SEO. Here are three tools to uncover a domain's history.
SEO Tools
3 Tools to Build, Validate Schema Markup

October 20, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Structured data markup from Schema.org is the de-facto industry standard — and increasingly important to Google. Here are tools for implementing, testing, and improving.
SEO Tools
5 Tools to Extract Data from Google’s SERPs

October 13, 2022 • Ann Smarty

An analysis of Google's search results can offer insights as to why one page ranks above another. Here are handy tools for that task.
On-page SEO
7 Steps to On-site Video SEO

October 6, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Videos appear in Google's search results in multiple sections. Here's how to optimize on-site videos for top organic rankings.
On-page SEO
How Images Help Overall SEO

September 29, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Optimizing images for Google helps overall rankings, not just Image search. Here's how.
Technical SEO
SEO for Sitelinks

September 22, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Organic sitelinks expand a listing's prominence in search results. But optimizing for sitelinks is frequently unclear. Here's what we know.
On-page SEO
5 Browser Extensions for On-page SEO

September 14, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Broken links, nofollow attributes, anchor text, structured data — all impact organic search rankings. Here are five handy (and free) extensions to make monitoring quick and easy.
Technical SEO
4 SEO Opportunities in Google Search Console

September 8, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Duplicate content, unknown keywords, poor click rates, and structured data errors — all represent opportunities to improve organic traffic.
Technical SEO
FAQs for ‘Video pages’ in Search Console

August 29, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Google's new "Video pages" report in Search Console has generated many questions from users. Contributor Ann Smarty addresses four of those questions in this helpful post.
Keyword Research
SEO: Keyword Research for a New Site

August 23, 2022 • Ann Smarty

A new site has no history of search queries that drive traffic and sales. But it can still research and optimize keywords. Here's how.