Best Online Blogs to Learn Digital Marketing Tips
Digital marketing is an important part of every business, from local businesses with physical locations that are looking to attract customers in the area, to e-commerce websites that sell products to people located all over the world.
You need to have an online marketing strategy, and whether that involves hiring a team in-house or outsourcing everything to a marketing agency, it’s a good idea to stay updated on the newest trends and new related to marketing a business online. Here are several excellent blogs you can read to stay informed and to learn a few things from.
SearchEngineJournal.com
This is one of the most popular SEO related blogs, and it covers everything from breaking news to tips and strategies from some of the best experts in the search engine optimization industry. None of the content is gated so it’s free to read it all.
“SEJ is a great blog and they use a contributor model, so the content is written by some of the most experienced SEO professionals,” says Oliver James of Perth Web Design, Perth’s fastest web agency. “These are people that generally run agencies and do consulting, so they are speaking form experience, which is key.”
The blog is constantly updated throughout the day during the week.
Backlinko.com
This is a personal blog by Brian Dean, who is one of the brightest SEO minds. It has a lot of long-form posts that dive into a lot of backlink building strategies.
“Backlinko’s content is some of the best, and while not updated daily or even weekly like some marketing blogs, Brian’s posts are very detailed and most of them are strategies he has personally used to build links,” says Loren Taylor of Soothing Company. Links are the most important part of SEO and Brian will tell you that. I suggest signing up for his email list so you know when a new post is published.
This is one SEO blog that I wish was updated more often, but each post is packed with value, so you know when there is something new you are going to learn a lot.
Ahrefs.com
This is a blog put out by one of the most popular SEO tools, Ahrefs. The blog contains a lot of guest posts by SEO agency owners and SEO experts.
“The thing I like most about the Ahrefs blog is that it’s not spammy,” says Ignacio Soria of this new company, CANN & Co. “It’s not a lot of posts showing how to use their tool, because a lot of blogs published by companies are just glorified ads.” The posts on Ahrefs are full of examples and data, which is helpful. When you can read about a new method or strategy and see data side-by-side it helps you understand how it works and the results it’s capable of delivering.
It seems like Ahrefs has cut back on the amount of content they publish, and instead are now focused on really publishing posts with examples and detailed how-to processes.
NeilPatel.com
This is the personal blog of online marketing pro Neil Patel, who has consulted for and ran the link building efforts of many top companies. This blog now consists of mainly his podcast, but there are still some occasional content blogs posted.
“The real value on this blog are the older posts,” says Irene McConnell of Arielle Executive, a company that helps improve job search success. “I suggest using the search function here and reading whatever you can find on the topic you are looking to master.” Neil is one of the most creative marketing minds when it comes to link acquisition. If you have a marketing team, I suggest you have them follow Neil’s content as well as his social media posts.
He now also has a YouTube channel where he goes deep on many
topics. It appears he now does long-form video posts rather than the old
traditional blog posts. YouTube is a great source of traffic, so it’s no wonder
he is leveraging that now.
QuickSprout.com
This is another blog by Neil Patel. His company QuickSprout is an educational resource for anyone looking to learn about online marketing. While there is a program you can sign up for, it’s the blog that gives the best value and it’s free. Whether you are blogging about living a healthy life or about your favorite sports team, you can find helpful articles here.
“QuickSprout is great because they update it very often,” says Andrew Tran of Therapy Blanket. “I can often find several new blog posts to read every week and they are usually touching on some of the most popular trends and strategies involving digital marketing.” It’s also very beginner friendly, so it’s a blog that can benefit all skill levels.
SearchEngineLand.com and MarketingLand.com
These are two blogs that are run by the same parent media company. If you visit them, the layouts and design are identical, except for the content. While Search Engine Land is SEO-only, Marketing Land covers all aspects of marketing, of which most are online related. These are some of the most well respected industry blogs.
“Search Engine Land and Marketing Land are blogs that are very technically advanced and the content is geared more towards experienced marketers,” says Darryl Howard of Blogger Tips. “This is great because it is void of the ‘learn SEO’ type blogs.” While they benefit many, these are good daily reads for in-house teams and those with a solid knowledge of SEO and digital marketing that want to learn about more advanced strategies, while also staying updated on news.
I’d also suggest signing up for these newsletters. Anytime there is a shakeup, like a Google update, or something important to announce, they are usually first to report or break the news. Their contributor writers are also top-level professionals in the industry as well.
HubSpot.com
HubSpot is one of the top CMS software platforms used worldwide and they were one of the first to coin the term “Inbound Marketing” back in the day. Their blog is also one of the best when it comes to inbound marketing strategies and techniques.
“HubSpot is a blog that most SMB owners will benefit from reading,” says Karen Anderson of The Probate Law House, a firm specializing in helping individuals find out if they need probate. “It is mainly consisting of content written by HubSpot staff, but also features some content from its agency partners that re-sell HubSpot.” Sometimes the posts can be geared more towards marketing agencies, but even those contain a lot of value-nuggets that can be applied to other industries.
HubSpot also hosts an annual conference, Inbound, that is something to consider if you want to learn about what is currently working in the world of digital marketing.
