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.

Technical SEO
Reasons to Avoid Nofollow Link Attributes

June 1, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Google in 2023 views nofollow link attributes as hints, not commands. Here's a rundown of common nofollow mistakes and the (limited) cases for using them.
Customer Retention
ChatGPT Prompts for Customer Support

May 30, 2023 • Ann Smarty

AI chatbots for customer support are not new. ChatGPT can do better, addressing common support scenarios and specific use cases.
SEO Tools
6 ChatGPT Prompts for Text Analysis

May 28, 2023 • Ann Smarty

ChatGPT can generate usable content. But it can also analyze existing content — articles, descriptions — and suggest improvements for SEO and social media.
Design & Dev Tools
AI Audio Tools for Meetings, Podcasts, Text-to-speech

May 23, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Artificial intelligence is powering many sophisticated audio tools. In this post, we test tools for transcribing and editing meetings and podcasts and for generating audio from text.
SEO Tools
3 Tools to Analyze Traffic on Any Website

May 18, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Ahrefs, Semrush, and Similarweb are helpful tools for analyzing traffic on third-party websites. But the estimates are often inaccurate.
Design & Dev Tools
Testing 7 AI Logo Generators

May 16, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Can AI-driven logo generators produce quality results? We test seven tools with varied outcomes.
Keyword Research
Analyzing Bing’s Keyword Research Tool

May 11, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Bing Webmaster Tools contains a helpful and free keyword research section. We take a look.
Content Marketing
My Test of 10 AI Content Detectors

May 9, 2023 • Ann Smarty

We generated text from ChatGPT and pasted it into 10 detection tools. Here are the results.
SEO Tools
How to Submit a Site, Location, Products to Google and Bing

May 3, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Certainly Google and Bing can find a web page on their own. But submitting sitemaps can expedite indexing. And product listings require submitting from merchants.
Photography & Video
4 AI Generators for Images, Videos, Presentations, Voice

May 2, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Artificial-intelligence-driven tools can create stunning visuals and audio, streamlining many marketing tasks.
SEO Tools
3 Tools to Research Competitors’ Backlinks

April 27, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Google, Bing, and other search engines continue to rely on the quality and quantity of backlinks for organic rankings. Analyzing competitors' backlinks can provide ideas and inspiration.
Schools & Resources
7 Resources for AI News, Updates, Ideas

April 25, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Developments in artificial intelligence occur at a breakneck pace. Here are seven go-to resources to keep up.
SEO Tools
My Favorite ChatGPT Prompts for SEO

April 20, 2023 • Ann Smarty

ChatGPT can streamline search engine optimization. But its responses are only as good as the prompts. Here are 29 favorites.
SEO Tools
The SEO Benefits of Broken Link Checkers

April 18, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Internal and external backlinks remain essential for organic rankings. Thus monitoring and preserving those links are equally key.
Keyword Research
Yes, SEO Keywords Remain Important

April 11, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Keywords are still important for search engine optimization despite the rise of semantic-based rankings.
Technical SEO
SEO for Domain Clustering Is Risky

April 4, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Despite announcing otherwise, Google still occasionally clusters two or more URLs from a single site in search results. But optimizing for such clusters poses risks.
SEO Tools
7 ChatGPT Browser Extensions for SEO

March 28, 2023 • Ann Smarty

Innovative browser extensions can supercharge ChatGPT output. Here are seven for search engine optimization.
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.