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As Community and Brand manager, Ann Smarty’s work is focused on both regularly contributing to the Internet Marketing Ninjas blog and serving as an internal SEO resource for the team. Ann Smarty has been involved in various high-profile roles in the SEO industry for more than ten years. Her background includes working as Editor-in-Chief at Search Engine Journal and being a regular columnist at some of best-known Internet Marketing online publications including Moz, Mashable, Social Media Examiner and more. Ann's search and social experience ranges from content creation and social media marketing to SEO reporting and consulting. Ann's expertise in Internet Marketing tools also helps in internal tool development and testing process.
I have been working in various areas of the Internet Marketing for 10 years. I come from Ukraine where I got a degree in English and German.
I started working in SEO field when still in high school: All I needed was a part-time job to train my English knowledge. I never thought that was going to be my career...
I have never had to look for a job ever since.
I have always enjoyed learning English and writing and thus I have found huge passion in SEO blogging. I have blogged in English (which is not my native language) for 4 years and have become a well known SEO authority and writer.
I've blogged on my personal blog seosmarty.com. I've also been a guest author at the most prominent Internet marketing blogs including SEOmoz, Mashable, Social Media Examiner etc. I've been interviewed for multiple blogs and books. I am contributor for Search Marketing Standard magazine, a premium online marketing publication delivered via print.
Throughout my Internet marketing career I've been involved in all sorts of related tasks and projects: I have a huge experience in team building (I managed teams both in-house for a Ukrainian company and from abroad as a Director of the large department in the U.S. company).
I have been successfully engaged in social media marketing as well and have built highly-networked and influential online presence and personal brand.
Currently I've joined Internet Marketing Ninjas as the Community and Branding Manager. My work is focused on both regularly contributing to the Internet Marketing Ninjas blog and serving as an internal SEO resource for the team.
My main goal is to to turn our blog into the leading free Internet marketing resource uniting SEO experts from all over the world.
I am also going to help operate all the communities we own: DevShed forums, Cre8site forums and WebmasterWorld forums.
Speaker: Ann Smarty • Location: Salon F
Speaker: Ann Smarty • Location: Salon C
Ann is a genius in her own right. Her deep insight on online marketing has enabled her to carve a niche for herself within the industry. Widely respected, and acknowledged as one of the sharpest brains in SEO, Ann is a delight to work. Being a fantastic colleague and a super person comes naturally to her.
Rajiv Karran, Production Manager, BlueGlass Interactive, Inc.
It isn't just that Ann is very knowledgeable--which she is--but she's a great person to work with too: she shares her expertise freely and is always pleasant to be around online. Rare combination! Ann is also a superb team leader. It looks effortless when she gets everyone to do what they need to be doing, but anyone who has ever managed a team knows how difficult it is. She's great at what she does.
Patricia Skinner, Contributing Writer, Search Engine Journal
Since the start the web anonymity has been quite a hot controversy in social media world. On one hand, everyone has the right to remain anonymous online to avoid personal attacks. On the other hand, social media networks have been trying to promote “real” connections which resulted in many of them forcing “real name” policy on their users. Let’s see what the “real name” policy is these days: 1. Facebook:… [Read More…]
An editorial calendar is where you keep track of what you plan to publish, how, where, and why over time. It enables you to think ahead, remember creative ideas, and plan your time wisely. Most people have an editorial calendar of some kind, even if it is only their ideas for the next week in their head. However, not having an editorial calendar can result in missed deadlines, a lack… [Read More…]
Nowadays we are all community managers to some extent (many of us own blogs, moderate Google Plus communities, participate in Facebook groups, etc.) We interact with our readers daily trying to learn from them, we tweet to our mentors, we collect feedback, help to promote our friends’ posts while sharing our own, we kill spam, we do lots and lots of *tiny* things every moment… What about if we do… [Read More…]
Researching niche questions is a great way to come up with awesome content that spreads, especially when it comes to timely and seasonal content. Here’s an example of question research that will come in handy for your next year’s content planning. Guys from Serpstat collected the most outstanding questions with the words “New Year” and “Christmas” for Google US. The data was obtained using “Search questions” feature which is something… [Read More…]
I would like to start this post off with, fittingly enough, one of many expert quotes about social media: “Social media allows us to behave in ways that we are hardwired for in the first place – as humans. We can get frank recommendations from other humans instead of from faceless companies.” ~ Francois Gossieaux, The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media An oversimplification, maybe, but a… [Read More…]
For a few years now you can add clickable links (calls-to-action, additional info, contact details, etc) right inside your Youtube video to direct viewers to your site, project, product page, etc. The problem is, while the topic is covered quite well inside Youtube guidelines, it’s scattered so much around the place that you’ll have trouble finding answers to your questions even if you know what you are looking for. Let’s… [Read More…]
What exactly is keyword clustering? To cluster keywords means to group your long overwhelming keyword lists by relevancy. I have done an article explaining keyword clustering in a most easy-to-understand way. At the heart of it, keyword clustering is what it sounds like: you take relevant keywords and arrange them together into groups. Use these keyword clusters to: Better understand your topic Optimize your content for several keyword phrases instead… [Read More…]
When you are seeking visibility for a product, brand or website, social media is a clear necessity in your tool belt. Spanning across multiple websites, formats and audiences, the way you structure your website can make all the difference in the world as to your eventual popularity. Perhaps the easiest way to make the most of social media is connecting with influencers. Think of social media as real estate, whether… [Read More…]
We’ve talked about search and social snippets before. A rich snippet is what you see below your search listing enriched with rating stars, author information, a thumbnail, etc… scraped from the linked page. For video listings, Google often shows: The video thumbnail (which implies it’s a video) The date the video was published The author of the video That image is probably going to attract visitors as well as increase… [Read More…]
One of my biggest passions? Blogs. I love writing for them, I love searching for them and I especially love reading them. The downside to this is that I have a huge number of blogs. I mean there are really lots of great blogs in my niche I need to keep up with. When you have too many blogs to follow, you run into the problem of actually reading them… [Read More…]
YouTube is one of the most useful tools for content marketing. The problem is the high number of competing videos you have to stand out against. According to the site’s statistics, 100 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube every single minute! You read that right… that is 6,000 in an hour, 144,000 hours in a day. Your best bet will always be building a consistent audience. But you still… [Read More…]
Last week I was in NYC speaking about influencer marketing and how it helps creating stronger content assets for your blog. Here’s my recap of the presentation: First of all, content marketing is ALL about influencing – not just your potential customer – but also about influencing the influencer, i.e. those people who can effect buyers’ decisions. And what’s a better way to accomplish that than to actually get that… [Read More…]
Information is flowing around us all the time. Sensationalized headlines on trendy stories peek at us from the sidebar of Facebook. Enticing hashtags beckon us to discover their meaning. One news story leads to another, and another, and another. Within minutes of getting online in the morning, you can find yourself falling down the rabbit hole. How can you possibly keep track of everything? How are you able to organize… [Read More…]
