Just when you thought it was safe to ignore my blog and not send me flowers anymore, out comes another kick ass interview.  The ever so lovely hyper social Shana Albert tapped our new pal Ann for an interview and I am just here to serve up the goodness.  So without further pointless delays….

10 Questions With Ann Smarty

10 – For people unfamiliar with who you are, introduce yourself with a little background and what areas of SEO you focus on.

My name is Ann Smarty (and no, that’s not my real name but rather a nickname I chose when starting an independent SEO consultant career). I am a native Ukrainian (I was born in a tiny town of Feodosia in the Crimea) and that’s where I got higher education (I am an English teacher by profession).

I started my own business about a year ago (man, time flies fast!) when I was forced to move back to Ukraine due to personal reasons, and being a freelance SEO consultant was the only way to keep up-to-date with what I had been doing.

That’s when I started my main blog – SEOsmarty.com. I didn’t want to turn it into an SEO guide and therefore there I shared my amateur opinion on branding, blogging (I was a start-up blogger at that time) and social media (I only started to participate in social networks then).

Well, now that one year passed, I blog actively on SEO and social media at Search Engine Journal, some people call me “social media power user” and I also have picked up a few solid projects I am currently working on.

9 – Now according to your profile on your site, you’ve been in SEO for 5 years.  When did you realize that this field of work was where you wanted to be?

Well, everything happened naturally – I don’t remember exactly the moment when I realized that SEO was what I wanted to do. Day by day, task by task, I was educating myself and learning more. Then, when I had to leave the United States, SEO turned out to be the only thing I could (and wanted to) do most of all – and I started with the SEO blog.

8 – What kind of impact has Social Media had on you?

Oh, the major role, I must say. I got to know plenty of great people there who helped me a bunch when I was starting. I learned to communicate with very different people, explored the Internet etiquette, found business partners and clients there. That’s where I can always find help in promoting any resource or content. And of course, social media sites remain my major source of information and inspiration.

StumbleUpon and Sphinn were my first experience with social media. I do remember how I step by step, mistake by mistake realized how to build relationships and self-promote there. Today I feel much more confident at any social site and that experience is invaluable.

7 – You seem to be a pretty busy blogger.  What do you do to get back in the groove when you’re faced with burnout on writing?

I have several sources of inspiration I go back to when I feel I can’t write any more. The first thing I do is to browse through a couple of my favorite blogs – I don’t like recapping anyone else’s posts and seldom do – but I like presenting my own perspectives or adding some actionable advice to what has already been said.

Forums and social bookmarking sites are usually my next steps. One word, one idea can be enough to get me want to write again.

Also, I like to browse through my older posts and think of new angles and perspectives to expand them. It’s funny how you get awesome ideas or find relevant tools and resources only after the post is published – and at the same time that’s a great opportunity for another useful piece.

6 – Got any advice for SEO bloggers just starting out?

Don’t hurry up. I see many people get into despair after a few months of trying to succeed. When I was starting I quickly found friends and built my reputation but I saw no money for about half a year.

People seemed to come, like my site and what I was doing, but no one wanted to pay me.  I only relied on my old projects I had worked when being in the United States.

Still I didn’t stop. And didn’t desperately try to analyze what I was doing wrong. I just kept working persistently and that worked in the end.

5 – Did you share your Halloween candy with the kids, or did you hide in the dark eating it all hoping nobody would knock on your door?

lol… Like I said, I am currently in Ukraine and we have no Halloween here – so this year I spent the holiday watching the Halloween-styled logos around the web.

4 – What’s some of your goals professionally for next year?

I have one huge personal goal for the next year (which I can’t disclose yet but will soon, I promise), so as for professional goals, I only want to keep up working no matter what happens…

3 – What 3 sites are you hopelessly addicted to and think people should check out?

• SEOmoz.org – that’s the first place I joined when starting out and I found an awesome community there. I don’t think I would achieve anything without the site and awesome people there. And today, while I am too busy now and can’t unfortunately spend as much time there as I used to, it remains my main source of information, tools and guidelines.
• Search Engine Journal – well, yes, I am biased, but how can I possibly be not addicted to it when I spend so much time there? I sincerely enjoy blogging for the site and working with smart people building the resource.
• MakeUseOf – that’s another site I started blogging for recently. As a tool geek, I can’t help checking it daily for new tools and apps I can try and blog about. I think it’s much more focused and to-the-point than all other similar sites reviewing new tools and start-ups.

2 – Recently you wrote about that favorite hot topic of guest posting on others blogs.  Why do you think people get up in arms over this subject?

Well, guest posting is one of the most effective ways to build links, awareness and readership. It’s one of those promotional tactics when everyone wins: a guest writer gets visibility and a host blogger – a great piece of content that may bring him more traffic and social media popularity.

What’s tricky about the subject – is the personal side, I guess. With guest posting you usually rely on your previous connections: people you previously knew and exchanged ideas, can behave strangely when it comes to business.

Besides, there are no globally accepted rules for guest posting: who owns the content, for example? Who is entitled to edit it? People’s opinions disagree here – this can also result in some serious misunderstanding.

1 – Who do you tap for me to interview next?

I’d like you to interview Tamar Weinberg – an incredibly intelligent blogger and social media expert who seems to be all over the Internet!