The 10 Marketing Blogs You Should Be Following

Reading up on the latest industry news and gathering tips and insights into marketing practices is an important part of being a marketer. Without reading, we wouldn’t be aware of when the latest Google updates have been rolled out, or when bad practices have meant that certain techniques have become outdated. Thankfully, there’s a whole host of marketing information to be found online, on personal blogs, in organisational articles, white papers and academic studies.

The internet and technology itself is something of a bottomless pit of learning, so to help you to sort the wheat from the chaff, we’ve put together a list of some of the top marketing blogs online.
So without further ado, let’s have a look at our selection.

#1: Moz Blog

Moz is a name which is synonymous with SEO and if you haven’t come across it yet then bookmark it today. As well as providing a regular and interesting ‘Whiteboard Friday’ feature each week, the Moz blog allows contributions from its community (in the YouMoz section which can be promoted to the main blog if it’s good enough), which is made up of marketing and SEO professionals. The blog covers all aspects of digital marketing and often, is the first to cover stories in-depth on important industry updates as well as expert tips and tricks on everything SEO, SEM, social media and online marketing.

Moz also provides a range of free and subscription-based tools for digital marketing professionals, such as:

• Mozbar – allows you to see at a glance the domain and page authority for each site you land on as well as providing tools for page analysis.
• Open Site Explorer - is a link building tool which allows you to analyse anchor text, perform competitive analysis and examine your link profile in detail.
• Followerwonk - is a Twitter tool designed to help you grow your following and discover the best ways to engage your audience.
• Moz Cast - allows you to track day-to-day changes in Google rankings.

#2: Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics is a provider of analytics software, a sort of Google analytics with more in-depth and actionable information for marketers. The Kissmetrics Blog often publishes research which has been based on industry studies and surveys as well as the results of interesting tasks such as A/B tests.

Kissmetrics material is always very useful and generally, you’ll find something that you can take away and act upon in real business situations.

#3: Marketing Land/Search Engine Land

These two blogs are run by the same people and contain between them everything you could ever wish to know about all aspects of digital and search engine marketing. As well as content written by the editorial staff, Marketing Land and Search Engine Land feature contributed articles from industry experts. There’s a huge amount of actionable and insightful material to be found on both sites and it’s a must for marketing managers looking to run successful online campaigns.

#4: Hubspot

Hubspot provide integrated inbound marketing tools in one software bundle for marketing professionals.
Its blog is broken down into sections:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Agency
• Academy
• Web design

It also offers the blog in German and Spanish. The sections are focused on providing high quality and actionable information for industry professionals. However, the Academy blog is aimed specifically at customers and aims to teach them how to use the tools they subscribe to more effectively.

#5: Positionly

These guys provide SEO software that’s designed to help marketing managers monitor daily rankings, perform keyword research and more. The blog contains high-end articles on all aspects of SEO and digital marketing which is ideal for experienced marketers. Posts tend to be on the longer side and to be packed with tips, tricks and advice on how best to carry out a range of online marketing activities. Positionly also embeds useful images and videos in its posts so that all of the information that you need is in one place.

#6: Duct Tape Marketing

This blog is something of a new find for me as I only discovered it a few weeks ago. The Duct Tape Marketing blog carries titles that are a little different to many of the marketing blogs that you’ll find. For example, the lead post today looks into ‘The Role of Luck in a Start Up’ which isn’t one that you’d immediately expect a marketing blog to publish. This is presented as a podcast which interviews Mikkel Svane, the founder and CEO of Zendesk.

The podcast is a regular feature and worth checking back for alone, but that’s not to say you should discount the rest of the blog. The blog owner, John Jantsch, is a bestselling author and speaker and the blog has been chosen as a Forbes favourite. The regular podcast feature was also described by Fast Company magazine as a “must listen” – check it out.

#7: Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner is regarded as the world’s leading social media blog and publishes content specifically focused on social media itself. The format of the posts ensures that they are easy to read and digest whilst giving actionable insights into the leading social platforms. The site also runs the Social Media Marketing Networking Club on LinkedIn and its podcast is listed as one of the top ten on iTunes. What sets the site aside is the way that information is presented. It’s not always easy to hold the reader’s attention online and so the way that posts are broken up with plenty of images and the use of short, snappy sentences and paragraphs means that it’s easy to take in with short, bite-sized chunks of information.

Social Media Examiner also runs what’s described as “the industry’s leading physical conference” Social Marketing World and the largest online conference Social Media Success Summit.

#8: Search Engine Watch

Marketing managers must know how search engines work in order to carry out their jobs properly and thoroughly and Search Engine Watch contains a wealth of information to help them to learn. Covering all aspects of search engine marketing, including PPC, SEO, analytics, mobile, local and much more, this site is ideal for those who are looking for ongoing professional development.

It’s a great site for discovering and acting on advanced techniques such as video SEO and Facebook Custom Audiences, for example. The site also carries all of the latest industry news so you’ll never be left wondering when the next Google update is due or how it might affect your clients.

#9: eConsultancy

This blog offers a huge amount of information and describes itself as being “home to the largest community of marketing and ecommerce professionals in the world.” There’s also a suppliers directory to be found on the site which is filled with the details of agencies, consultants, tech vendors, freelancers and contractors that provide services across digital marketing, content writing and much more.

The eConsultancy blog publishes useful research including best practice guidelines, buyer guides, industry surveys and statistics and much more. You can sign up for the Daily Pulse for tips, research and advice delivered directly to your inbox every day.

#10: The Content Marketing Institute

The Content Marketing Institute blog is my go-to for all things content marketing orientated including excellent industry research which is published often. The blog was founded with the intention of actively moving the content marketing industry forward. It began life as Junta42 before evolving into its current incarnation and has since also developed Content Marketing World and CCO magazine. The former is an industry conference which is held in Cleveland, Ohio, USA each year and has more than 80 speakers who are leading figures within the industry.

Check out the blog for in-depth research, tips and tricks on all aspects of content marketing and posts on digital marketing subjects across the board.

Final Thoughts …

It’s never easy coming up with a list of your favourites of anything and great marketing blogs are no exception. There are a lot of awesome blogs out there that I read on a very regular basis, since the majority of my time is taken up with writing on digital marketing. However, the above are the sites that I always check first when looking for inspiration or specific research that I’d like to write about. For marketing managers, these blogs are invaluable and can help to make life easier in a huge variety of ways since the information contained within them is always far-reaching and very often expert.

(Disclaimer for the sake of transparency: I have in the past written for both Social Media Examiner and Positionly, but this post is not influenced by that nor have I been offered any incentive to mention them.)