Ann Smarty is the Brand and Community manager at InternetMarketingNinjas.com as well as the founder of MyBlogU.com. Ann has been into internet marketing for 10 years. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Journal and a contributor to prominent search and social blogs, including Small Biz Trends and Mashable.
“A community around your business is the most powerful asset you can dream of, and blogging is one of the best ways to build one.”
“Social media is the next SEO already. SEOs cannot ignore social any longer, no matter how obvious that now sounds.”
“Never stop learning. I’ve been suffering a lot when, at some point, I got so busy that I couldn’t afford to actually read. I felt I was getting dumb. Now I freed myself from a lot of duties exactly for that: to be able to learn new things again and I enjoy it thoroughly. The moment you stop learning new things you stop being a good blogger.”
“Reputation management in organic search has become complicated because now you see photos and reviews for the brand queries. “
“One of the most effective ways to create content is using H2, and H3 subheadings. Surprisingly, Google still uses optimized subheadings. “
“SEO is less effective than 10 years ago when you just needed to buy links. Now it’s more complicated, results are not as good as they used to be, but it still drives the best traffic.”
“My advice to people who think that there is no time for family or to start a project – there will never be enough time.”
“I think blogging is one of the most efficient lead-generation and brand-building methods out there. It can turn your one-time customers or random visitors into brand ambassadors, and those are the people who’ll help your business survive no matter what marketing channel fails to perform tomorrow.”
“Building a strong web presence means making sure you don’t rely on any one marketing tactic.”
“The only way to outrank the bad guys is to watch and hope that Google will at some point develop a fair algorithm. The bottom line is – and always has been – that there are times when good SEO doesn’t help; only the bad works. It is a sad fact. But it is true.”
“Unless you go out and promote your content using methods not considered “good,” your content will be hard to find in all the tons of information online. We are dealing with an unfair and poorly-designed algorithm.”
“SEO will never favour the good guy until the algorithm favours the good guy. You don’t rank because you deserve to; you rank only if you break the rules. To become big you pay for services. You still need links, and you still need to pay for them one way or the other. You can pay Google AdWords for positioning, or you can pay someone else, but ranking takes work.”
“Guest blogging is time-consuming and hard to scale – and the only “measurable” outcome (that makes it look worth a try) is links.”
“Guest blogging is all about cross-niche expertise exchange: social media marketers can blog on a creativity-related site on how to use social media to get more exposure to one’s artworks. Pet owners can blog on a health-related site on how pets favourably affect help…You only limit is your imagination!”
“Don’t try to be like someone else. There’s the difference between watching what your competitors (or fellow bloggers) are doing and trying to do the same. What makes you different is your own perspective.”
“Be passionate and hungry. Many very successful bloggers don’t make any money from their blogs. Let that never discourage you. You are successful as long as you are hungry.”
“If you feel tired, switch to something else. There’s the reason why I have so many projects (while really not having time for all of them). When I feel inspired, I just do it outright! That lets me stop working on a current project and explore something new!”
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