What are the best Search Engine Marketing blogs to follow? Which are the most popular? The chart above from Feed Compare shows a comparison of the RSS feed subscriber counts published by Feedburner for: Google Webmaster Central (red), Search Engine Land (blue), Search Engine Watch (green) and our very own Online Marketing Blog (purple).
As evidence of how successful a well executed business blog can be, TopRank’s Blog has about as many RSS subscribers as top industry publication Search Engine Watch (37,517/37,028). It’s a great position for an agency to have that kind of reach and also to be able to bring first hand, successful business blogging expertise to our consulting clients.
Blogs covering the search engine marketing industry, including our own Online Marketing Blog, started popping up around 2003 and we’ve been covering SEM blogs pretty well with our BIGLIST of SEO Blogs for the past 3 years or so. One of the dimensions worth considering when deciding which blogs to subscribe to is the social proof of how many others have subscribed to a particular blog. There are other factors at play obviously, like topic, writing style, frequency and level of engagement by other readers, but SEM blogs have been around long enough for the good ones to attract a noticeable following.
Below is a list of blogs that cover Search Engine Marketing topics ranked according to how many RSS subscribers they have as of August 6th, 2010. It’s important to note that not all blogs run their feeds through Feedburner, nor do all blogs that run their feeds through Feedbuner enable the Feedcount option which makes the chicklet counters below possible. That said, it’s a pretty good list. If you want a much larger list to pick from, be sure to visit the Online Marketing Blog BIGLIST of SEO Blogs.
1. Google Webmaster Central
The official blog from Google that supports the resource center for webmasters.
2. Matt Cutts Blog
Google Web Spam team leader Matt Cutts’ personal blog which includes a mix of personal and Google content posts which can affect search marketers. Recently there’s such a mix of content topics that I almost didn’t include this blog in our list.
3. SEOmoz Blog
A staple for popular SEO advice for years that has experienced substantial growth, especially the past 3 years since we’ve been tracking RSS subscriber counts on SEO blogs.
4. Search Engine Land
One of the most cited, read and trusted sources of information on search engine marketing.
5. Online Marketing Blog
Started in 2003, TopRank Marketing’s blog has posted over 2,000 tips, interviews, conference liveblogging, videos, polls, book reviews and many other forms of content covering Search Marketing.
6. Search Engine Watch
An industry original, this blog has been a source of essential Search Marketing news, articles and insight for many of the most respected internet marketing professionals in the business.
7. Search Engine Journal
One of the oldest and most popular Search Marketing blogs on the web, SEJ is a goldmine of tips, opinion and news.
8. Search Engine Roundtable (Normal feed)
No other Search Marketing blog provides the unique perspective that SER does by rounding up important threads from Search Marketing forums, tracking news on search engines and is a pioneer of liveblogging SEM conferences.
9. Marketing Pilgrim
A must read for Search Marketing industry news, Andy Beal and crew deliver perspective and smarts you can’t always get elsewhere.
10. HubSpot
Source of the popular phrase, “inbound marketing”, this blog has become a source of practical search & Internet marketing information for tens of thousands of marketers world-wide.
Obviously there are many other blogs writing about search marketing like SEOBook and some might even have over 22k RSS subscribers, but they’re not pushing their RSS through Feedburner and/or not enabling the Feedcount feature. Therefore, those blogs are not on this list. I will note that the Search Engine Roundtable blog publishes more than one feed as do a few other blogs, but we’re picking the most popular feed for the purpose of this list and that’s the only one being counted.
One of the interesting things about this mix of blogs is the variance in their designs. It’s obvious that some blogs are doing a great job of slimming down their pages of images to increase page speed, which we’ve obviously completely ignored with posts like the one above. The addition of certain social sharing buttons is also more explicit on most blogs.
When looking for great resources to learn more about Search Engine Marketing, should you always go with the most popular blogs? Of course not. There are plenty of newer blogs putting out useful information. A mix of tenured blogs plus an effort to discover a few new blogs always makes sense in my book. That’s how I started the BIGLIST of SEO blogs, by reviewing new blogs to see what else was out there.
Which 10 Search Marketing blogs would make up your top ten list?
