Ann Smarty
Ann Smarty is the founder of Smarty Marketing, a boutique SEO agency based in New York, and Viral Content Bee, a social media promotion tool.
Ann's search engine optimization career began in 2005. 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 many other digital marketing events.
Contact Ann via email or LinkedIn.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Keyword Research
SEO: How to Assess Keyword Difficulty
August 18, 2022 • Ann Smarty
Optimizing for keywords can improve a page's organic rankings. But the competition for keywords varies. Here's how to tell which ones are worth the effort.
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Technical SEO
SEO for Animated GIFs
August 11, 2022 • Ann Smarty
Animated GIFs can provide unique, crawlable page content, boosting organic search rankings. But GIFs can also harm rankings if poorly executed. We explain.
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SEO Tools
6 Keyword Tools for Video SEO
August 4, 2022 • Ann Smarty
The intent of consumers searching for videos often differs from searches of other content types. Ecommerce merchants should optimize for both. We explain.
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Technical SEO
SEO for Featured Snippets
July 28, 2022 • Ann Smarty
Featured snippets appear at the top of Google's organic search results. Optimizing for snippets is different than for standard listings. Here's how.
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On-page SEO
SEO: 4 Ways to Surface Shopify Pages
July 21, 2022 • Ann Smarty
Product pages on ecommerce sites can get buried in the navigation, making them difficult for search engines to access. Here's how to surface deep pages on Shopify.
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SEO Tools
SEO: WordPress Plugins to Surface Older Posts
July 14, 2022 • Ann Smarty
Posts in an active blog fade into the archives. The result is no internal links from new content — and less visibility. Here's how WordPress owners can keep older content prominent.
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SEO Tools
5 Tools to Monitor Your SEO Competitors
July 7, 2022 • Ann Smarty
Looking to monitor your organic search competitors? Here are five handy (and affordable) tools to track rankings, content updates, links, and more.
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