My Top Ten Must-Read Inbound Marketing Blogs

R.I.P copy. Google Reader
R.I.P copy. Google Reader

How are you surviving on this first day after the demise of Google Reader? Given the paltry adoption rate of RSS in general, you probably never noticed. But this was quite a personal ordeal for me for two reasons. First, I’m not one of those people who fears change. In fact, I love discovering new stuff and, in actuality, suffer a bit from shiny object syndrome. However, when it comes to the tools I rely on every single day to run my business, I don’t like my productivity to take a hit from switching systems. Second, I scan A LOT of RSS feeds every day. Over 1,000 on an average day.

And I did it all in Google Reader.

So when they announced that they were shutting it down, I was not amused. I had to find a new system that worked on my desktop, iPad and Android phone, supported the sharing features I was accustomed to using, and didn’t slow me down too much. I finally settled on Feedly, and while it’s OK I’m still going to be on the lookout for something better. Changing over to a new system was an opportunity to clean out the dead wood. I deleted almost half of my feeds (most of them had been abandoned) and reorganized them a bit.

One of the features of the mobile version of Feedly is a “Must Read” classification. I reviewed all of my marketing RSS subscriptions and added my favorites to this list. I thought I’d share it with you today in case any of them are missing from your radar.

In no particular order, my must-read inbound marketing blogs include:

  1. HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Blog – The company that literally wrote the book on inbound marketing is a no-brainer. They are the undisputed heavyweight champion of marketing blogs.
  2. Search Engine Land – If you’re interested in keeping up to speed with the very latest developments in search engine optimization, this blog is for you.
  3. Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik – The Godfather of Web Analytics doesn’t publish very frequently, but when he does they are long, dense and incredibly informative. Why bother with all of this inbound marketing stuff if you’re not measuring?
  4. ProBlogger Tips – Darren Rowse has been making money from his blog for years and is probably the first celebrity blogger. He publishes a regular stream of high quality posts that will quite simply make you a better blogger.
  5. WiderFunnel Conversion Rate Optimization Blog – This site recently came to my attention and their content is super-important for understanding how to build better landing pages.
  6. Quick Sprout – Neil Patel writes about a number of different topics related to generating web traffic and maximizing conversions.
  7. Copyblogger – My wife and I used to admonish our toddler children when they pitched a fit over something to “use your words!” We encouraged them to communicate instead stomping feet or screaming. Copyblogger is the adult version of that approach: Use your words to perfect your marketing.
  8. Google Webmaster Uploads on YouTube – When it comes to search engine optimization, why not go straight to the source? Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team takes questions from webmasters and occasionally answers them on camera.
  9. The Moz Blog – SEO Moz recently dropped the “SEO” from their company name because they’ve expanded far beyond a link analysis tool. Their Whiteboard Friday series alone is must-see content for inbound marketers.
  10. Domesticating IT – Duh! Did you think I’d leave myself out?

What do you think? If you feel I’ve left someone out, feel free to propose a name (but you also have to suggest who you’d drop from the list).

3 thoughts on “My Top Ten Must-Read Inbound Marketing Blogs”

  1. Well selected list.
    BTW I am trying G2Reader as my Google Reader replacement. I selected on the basis of a PC Mag review. I’ll let you know how it works for me.

    Reply

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