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50+ Essential Blogs to Help You Succeed in Online Marketing

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Essential Blogs

If there is one thing that practically any online marketer can attest to, it’s the importance of having a few reliable, “go-to” resources in your arsenal when you begin your journey in online marketing.

If you try to do without a few reliable sources or a dependable (and knowledgeable) mentor, you can find yourself on the wrong track, chasing pipe dreams and jumping from strategy to strategy, never sticking with the things that actually WORK in the long run.

If you feel the same way (or find yourself overloaded with all of this new info in the online marketing space), prepare your bookmarks, because you just found the only post you need to get started with online marketing.

The Essential List

Below is a hand-picked list of all of the essential reads in the blogosphere that will help you in every aspect of you online marketing efforts.

There may be a few more worthy additions to this list, but 50+ is more than enough to get you started.

In fact, I’d advise that you do not bookmark or subscribe to all of these at once: pick one from each section, read a few of their best posts, and decide if the content there is really helpful to you specifically.

If it’s not, try another.

If it is helpful, subscribe, and when you’ve really taken in some key information, try another blog from this list.

The point of this post is to give you a place to start, not to give you an excuse to browse aimlessly and get distracted!

Enough rambling, on to the list!

The Key Topics

To make things easier for you, the list is divided into the following topics:

  1. Blogging
  2. Content Marketing
  3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  4. Online Marketing
  5. Social Media
  6. Personal Finance
  7. Freelancing
  8. Writing
  9. Inbound Marketing & Traffic
  10. Conversion Optimization
  11. Entrepreneurship
  12. Customer Service
  13. Social Psychology

Remember, don’t overload yourself on new info: try a few blogs out, digest their information, determine if it’s a fit for you and your stage of your online efforts, and then move towards action.

Information is great, but it can be a crutch if you use it to avoid doing work; don’t let that happen to you!

Blogging

For many online businesses, blogs can be a foundational aspect. Bringing in new readers (and future customers), providing value, showing your expertise, blogs have shown, time and time again, to be one of the best ways to help a new business break out online.

Content Marketing

Content marketing starts with a killer blog (above), but has many other crucial elements involved like effective copywriting (and SEO copywriting), list building, and learning how to sell within your content (without frustrating readers). These blogs will show you where to get started.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engines can be a great asset to your business, but don’t build a business that depends on them, as they’ve shown in the past, they can be quite fickle.

Still, you can generate a lot of great traffic you wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise, and these blogs will keep you updated with Google, how to optimize on page, and how to build those great links that help rankings soar.

Online Marketing

“General” online marketing as it were can start to blend multiple aspects into a few cohesive articles that cover how to implement different sections of online marketing into a well oiled machine.

These blogs will help you with your general marketing efforts online, as well as how to put everything together and how to run things smoothly.

Social Media

Social media can be a great asset to driving traffic to your “home base” (your website), it can also be a monumental waste of time.

Use the following blogs to pick up tactics that actually work, and always strive to keep you social media usage productive, friendly, and most importantly, useful for those connecting with you.

Personal Finance

Understanding basic money management is essential to growing any sort of business.

While these blogs may not make up for having a basic accounting and money management book, they are a great place to get you started.

Freelance Business

Learning how to operate a freelance business can be essential to getting your online efforts off the ground.

In order to keep money coming in during the early stages of your business, and to learn the ropes and make great connections, nothing quite beats freelancing on the side for a while (or even full-time!)

Writing

Many online business depend on great writing.

Even if you are running a business that focuses on an “app” or software, writing great content and sales copy is essential to landing new customers, so don’t go thinking that you don’t need to understand effective writing and copy, it’s crucial!

Inbound Marketing & Traffic

Driving people to your site is a crucial component to any business online, but you also want to make sure you are driving the right people.

These blogs will help you build a thriving audience and superstar prospective customers with smart inbound marketing tactics.

Conversion Optimization

Once you start hitting 1000+ visitors a day to your site, you need to start taking conversion rates very seriously.

These blogs will show you how to do more with the traffic that you have, increasing sales and conversions by making subtle and effective changes to your site, bringing you more business with the same amount of unique visitors.

Entrepreneurship

What’s an online business owner without a few entrepreneurship related blogs in their arsenal?

The following are great sources of inspiration, ideas, and tactics to implement in your own entrepreneurial endeavors.

Customer Service

Once you start gaining customers, you must understand how to keep them and how to keep them happy.

These blogs focus on creating amazingly satisfied customers who will go on to help build your business by word of mouth and positive reviews.

Social Psychology

While marketing tactics may change over time (remember when SEO was really simple?), human behavior typically does not.

These blogs will help you tap into the psychology of selling and creating great content in order to ethically move people towards saying “Yes!”, and are critical if you want your business to succeed in the long term.

Over To You…

Now, it’s your turn!

Let me know…

  1. What blogs you think should have been included…
  2. What blogs on this list are your favorite…
  3. What books you recommend to get started with doing business online! (Books, who reads those?! ;))

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the comments!

Image © burak çakmak – Fotolia.com

About

Gregory Ciotti is a content strategist who is obsessed with behavioral psychology. He's the marketing guy at Help Scout, the invisible email support software for solopreneurs & small business owners.

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{ 31 Responses }

  1. Bram says:
    Thanks for putting together this extensive resources guide mr.Ciotti. Just so you know, your work is being appreciated. There are many great blogs and articles I didn't know yet although I'm a great fan of Seth Godin as well.
  2. Koundeenya says:
    That is an amazing list. Fortunately, I follow most of them and from the list, I am a great fan of your SparringMind. It feels so interesting and exciting to read about the behavioral psychology, especially about the people on internet. Your infographics, the content and everything is just so great and awesome. Personally, my favorite blogs include copyblogger, Seth's blog, GoinsWriter, ZenHabits, LifeHack, WorkAwesome, probloggingsuccess, famousbloggers, sparrindmind, social triggers and neuroscience marketing blog. Thank You
  3. Amar Ryder says:
    wow superb list :) thnks a lot 4 sharing it will helps a lot i will surely follow it.
  4. Hassaan Khan says:
    Great list for sure. Good work always demands to be admired. I am going to follow this blog and few of them that are mentioned in the post. Thanks
  5. vinodh says:
    great list .I knew only half of them. Problogger and daily blog tips must be listed first . regards vinodh
  6. Samuel Pustea says:
    I love this list since it is structured into categories that each blog specializes in. Thanks Gregory for the list! I will look for some to guest post on ;)
  7. Margaret Kasten says:
    great post! I' am moving forward to learn more from this article.
  8. Neo Jit says:
    Thank you very much Gregory.This blog lists are incredible with high authority. I like seomoz and seochat for learning some seo.
  9. Namita Patel says:
    I love Social Media Examiner (social media) and Search Engine Journal (SEO).
  10. Andrew says:
    Great list! still I thought Kikolani.com (Christey Hines) deserves a space on this list. Her write-ups are very analytical and full of real-life examples!
    • Gregory Ciotti says:
      I agree 100%, along with a few other blogs like my buddy Tom Ewer's site Leaving Work Behind. Cuts had to be made to get it near 50 though, but Kristi knows I love her writing so it's all good. :)
  11. Trung Nguyen says:
    I only know some of these blogs above, I need to bookmark this page, it'll help me finding the other blogs for building links for my blogs. Thanks for sharing.
  12. Pritam Nagrale says:
    Its a great list. I am already following few of the sites you have provided. Some of the sites I have just visited & they are really worth to follow to get the great idea on the topics. This list will really help bloggers and web marketers to get the success. Thanks a lot.
  13. Dean Saliba says:
    I like reading lists like this because I normally ALWAYS find a couple of new blogs that are of interest to me that I would not have come across otherwise. This time I actually found about 20! Great job guys. Maybe you could publish a future one about blogs to read to make money online? Because most only a small fraction of the blogs you have offered above actually only offer a minute. :)
  14. Lee says:
    Great list you have compiled here Gregory Ciotti! My daily reading blog would be Dailyblogtips and Problogger, they are my mentors since the day I started my first blog. Well done Gregory!
  15. Ramsay says:
    Thanks for the mention Greg. You are a handsome fellow indeed! Ramsay
  16. Dewane Mutunga says:
    Greg, Great List! My top picks would have to include Social Triggers, Smart Passive Income, Seth's Blog, PsyBlog, Copyblogger, Think Traffic, and Social Media Examiner
  17. Gregory says:
    Gregory, Thanks so much for including Customer That Stick in your list. It is an honor to be listed with so many great blogs and bloggers. I'm looking forward to checking out some new ones that your post revealed. Excellent post! Thanks again for the include!
  18. Gerald says:
    Terrific combination in almost all areas! I always wanted someone for Social Media for my website! Well, now that you have made my work easier, it will fasten my delayed work! Thanks a lot! Cheers!
  19. Aasma says:
    That's a nice list, These are some great blogs which have set quality standard for themselves.
  20. Ben Troy says:
    thanks for putting all together, the list must help improving skills for those niche, I also follow problogger,blogussion to learn about blogging and Johnchow about make money blogging as busiess
  21. Warren says:
    Great resource list here and so many of my favorite blogs got listed. There are also several I haven't been visiting so going to check them out as well.
  22. JamesW says:
    Great blog post, and interesting list, you should include basicblogtips and hotblogtips. My favorite are: FamousBloggers of course :) and Daily Blog Tips. And I recommend "The Start-up of You" by Reid Hoffman book, It's really great. thanks for sharing
  23. Jon Cooper says:
    *Does a little happy dance* Thanks for including me Gregory! Seeing as I'm one of only 4 SEO blogs up there, that means a whole lot :)
  24. Geoff Vincent says:
    For online marketing I like GrowMap http://growmap.com/ with their wide range of topics all related to improved marketing on your site.
  25. Caleb Wojcik says:
    Thanks for the shout-out Gregory. Appreciate it! As for books, I'd have to save that these are my essential books for people looking to get started in online marketing: http://www.pocketchanged.com/2012/02/08/20-must-read-books-cubicle-renegade/
  26. James Clear says:
    Great list with some great people! Thanks for thinking of me. It's nice to be a part of such a great group. :)
  27. bbrian017 says:
    Gregory this is a killer list, I know so many of them and there's so many I still need to learn about! Thanks so much for cresting this amazing list for us. I plan on saving each of them and visiting to see if it's something I would like to start reading.
  28. Jamie Northrup says:
    That is a great list, I follow most of them already, but will definitely check out the ones I was missing. The only one I would say is missing that I really think is great and deserving that I follow is Income Diary.
  29. Devesh says:
    Fantastic resource, Greg. My favorite blogs are Leaving work Behind, Basic Blog Tips & Sparring Mind ;). Would love to see BlogPreneurs added to the list. Good job, mate.
  30. Amit Shaw says:
    Hi Gregory, Why you are asking for include any blog? Is It required :P You have already include all :) Just Superb List and you have done a great job by categorize it. Thanks. BTW it would be best if you include johnchow and BasicBlogTips? My Fav Sit's Are : 1. Copy Blogger, 2. Basic Blog Tips, 3. Think Traffic, 4. Traffic Generation Cafe,5. YoungPrePro, 6. Passive Panda,7. Famous Bloggers,8. Boost Blog Traffic,9. Blog Tyrant,10. Daily Blog Tips,11. Problogger,12. Kikolani And Finally My Blog iTechCode :D Thanks for share.