Digital Marketing And Influencer Marketing Still Making Huge Waves.
What Other Marketing Strategy Can Silent Digital Marketing In The Coming Years?
Thanks to growthrocks for this piece. And please read to your understanding as we hope to guide you through this article.
We are already past the first half of the year, which means one thing: The first half of 2019 is behind us.
Now I believe it is a good time to take a look back and see what the first half of the year had to offer to our digital marketing collective knowledge. We researched and gathered the top digital marketing articles, according to the number of total engagement on social media and their total number of upvotes in their communities.
This is what most digital marketers learnt this year. If you didn’t have the chance to read these posts, you now do.
I’d suggest bookmarking this page so you can read the blog posts at your pace.
And so here are the best digital marketing articles: The Top 3 Posts of The Top 15 Digital Marketing Blogs for the first half of 2019, in alphabetical order. Enjoy.
1. Ahrefs
> 10 Ways to Get Google to Index Your Site (That Actually Work) – By Joshua Hardwick
> How to Improve SEO: 8 Tactics That Don’t Require New Content – By Si Quan Ong
> How to Write a Blog Post in 9 Steps (That People Actually Want to Read) – By Rebekah Bek
Our list begins with, Ahrefs. Ahrefs is first and foremost a powerful SEO tool. From keyword research to content explorer, and from site audit to link building, Ahrefs is one of the better SEO tools out there.
Whether you use Ahrefs for your needs or not, its blog provides huge value for everyone. Its purpose is to help you get better at SEO and it does so through three main categories: SEO Basics – Link Building – Keyword Research. These categories feature blogs like How to Learn SEO, Complete Link Building Guide, and How to Use Keyword Planner. The article authors are SEO marketing practitioners and industry experts, including Joshua Hardwick (Head of Content), Rebekah Bek & Si Quan Ong (Marketing), and Tim Soulo (Ahrefs CMO).
2. Backlinko
> We Analyzed 912 Million Blog Posts. Here’s What We Learned About Content Marketing – By Brian Dean
> Copywriting: The Definitive Guide – By Brian Dean
> We Analyzed 12 Million Outreach Emails. Here’s What We Learned – By Brian Dean
Brian Dean needs no introduction to anyone who claims to know anything about SEO. Brian started his blog in 2013 when he wanted to learn more about SEO but weren’t enough resources to do so. And so, from his Airbnb in Lisbon, he started sharing strategies and tips in the form of SEO articles of high value. After a few months passed and some traction was built, Brian had become a household name in the online marketing communities.
Backlinko is nowadays a popular go-to resource for actionable SEO and content marketing advice. More than 3 million visitors every year, trust Backlinko and read Brian’s digital marketing articles. For those who want to grow their organic traffic and rank higher, Backlinko’s blog is what they are looking for.
3. BuzzSumo
> The 2019 Ultimate Guide to Facebook Engagement – By Susan Moeller
> 7 Steps To Create A Successful, Profitable Blog – By Mike Allton
> Best B2B Content: Analysis and Insights from Over 50,000 Articles – By Dustin Stout
BuzzSumo is another powerful online marketing tool. Its mission is to help you with one thing: Content. Be it competitor content analysis, content ideas or finding key influencers to share your content with their audience, BuzzSumo is a popular tool for that. If you are looking to step up your content marketing game, then BuzzSumo is one of the best ways to do this.
BuzzSumo’s Blog is about Data-Driven Marketing Insights. BuzzSumo combines content marketing and technology in a unique way and helps you create viral content. Besides content-related marketing, inside the blog, you can find a lot of SEO and social media material from top content experts.
4. Content Marketing Institute
> Get Rid of These 25 Phrases and Words From Your Content – By Julia McCoy
> 9 Steps to Optimize Images for SEO – By Isaac Justesen
> 24 Big Mistakes You Should Avoid in Content Marketing – By Ann Gynn
Content Marketing is King and Content Marketing Institute knows this well. Founded in 2010, CMI’s mission is to make you a better content marketer, and it’s one of the first blogs with a clear content marketing direction. CMI’S digital marketing articles promise to teach you how to develop a content strategy, how to create valuable content for your audience and how to measure what’s working (and what’s not), so you can make any appropriate changes.
Furthermore, CMI publishes Chief Content Officer, the first publication written by chief content officers for chief content officers. The digital magazine publishes three times a year and you can download all their issues for free.
5. Copyhackers
> Forget the Images: Long Facebook Ad Copy Works – By Sarah Sal
> I’ve Helped Create 150+ Case Studies. Here’s (Almost) Everything I’ve Learned – By Joel Klettke
> Inclusive Buyer Personas: Where new product ideas live and growth happens – By Sonia Thompson
Like the name gives away, Copyhackers is created with one particular breed of marketer in mind: the copywriter. Copyhackers is, as they call themselves, the home of conversion copywriting.
At Copyhackers, you are going to find blog posts dedicated to copywriting and content, as well as posts about your freelancing career as a copywriter. Therefore you can read from ‘How to write welcome emails’ and ‘How to write headlines’ to ‘How to write a project proposal’ and ‘How to plan a SaaS onboarding funnel’.
6. GrowthHackers
> AMA with Dani Hart, Founder of Growth Gal & Former Head of Growth at GrowthHackers – By Dani Hart
> ΑΜΑ with Jim Huffman, GrowthHit CEO, Author of The Growth Marketer’s Playbook and Techstars Mentor – By Jim Huffman
> AMA with Kieran Flanagan, VP of Growth and Marketing at Hubspot – By Kieran Flanagan
GrowthHackers is a community founded by the man responsible for many marketing success stories, including the growth of Dropbox: Sean Ellis. Sean is also the man who came up with the word ‘growth hacking’ and introduced it to the digital marketing world. In 2013 he created a community and made a home for everyone who interested in this new approach of marketing.
The purpose of GrowthHackers.com is to give experiment-driven marketers a place to discuss what truly matters in driving sustainable customer acquisition growth. Users submit articles from their blogs or blogs that they find interesting as a conversation starter or just for anyone that might be interested in. One of the most intriguing parts of GrowthHackers, also, is the live AMA’s, where marketing experts around the world answer the questions of the community.
Oh! Don’t forget to take a look at its Growth Studies, too!
7. GrowthRocks
> LinkedIn Experiment: Link in Post VS Link in Comment – By Nicolas Lekkas
> The Big 5 Tech Companies & Their Big 5 Acquisitions – By Nicolas Lekkas
> 12 Ways to Increase Organic Facebook Reach in 2019 – By Nicolas Lekkas
GrowthRocks is a growth hacking agency that helps startups and well-established companies to achieve rapid and sustainable growth. Since 2014 GrowthRocks grows along with their clients around the world. Their blog does, too.
The GrowthRocks blog is one of the most preferred digital destinations by growth hackers all over the globe. In the blog, you will find tech-focused articles and step-by-step guides, such as how to install Google scroll tracking event in Analytics, Zapier automations, as well as A/B tests the agency has done – or just a listing of the current growth hacking courses.
8. Hubspot
> The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2019 – By Caroline Forsey
> The 60 Best Free Online Courses For Whatever You Want to Learn – By Lisa Toner
> 6 Tips to Stop Thinking About Work After Work Hours [Infographic] – By Caroline Forsey
Hubspot is a developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales. It’s vastly known for its free CRM tool, used by small businesses. One of Hubspot’s co-founders, Brian Halligan, is also responsible for the term ‘Inbound Marketing’, which he coined.
Hubspot is one of the best all-around marketing blogs you can find. Its digital marketing articles expand in four basic categories: Marketing, Sales, Service, and News & Trends. If you want to be up-to-date with the latest marketing, sales and service tips, Hubspot is an excellent place for that. You can also find Ebooks, guides, research & reports, as well as free courses & certifications.
9. Indie Hackers
> We wasted $50K on Google Ads so you don’t have to – By Anton Elfimov
> Ideas for promoting your software product – By Justin Jackson
> Bootstrapping a Business: 5 Years In – By Michael Hansen
Indie Hackers is a community made of founders, entrepreneurs, developers, and marketers. Users come together to share their experiences, give and receive feedback. In the community, you will find entrepreneurs with $100k/month companies talking openly with founders that make $10/month.
Every word you read in the posts and articles is usually written by someone who did something first and then went on to write about it. So rather than reading something vague about brand awareness you can be part of an A/B test for landing page and tell the founder your opinion.
10. Marketing Land
> Facebook to replace relevance score with 3 new metrics in April – By Amy Gesenhues
> Updated: Prepare to say goodbye to Facebook ad set budgets – By Amy Gesenhues
> Facebook gives small businesses new advertising and engagement tools – By Amy Gesenhues
Marketing Land is a well-known publication for covering a wide spectrum of marketing: analytics, social media, mobile marketing, SEO, display, retail, and more. Founded in 2011, Marketing Land is one of the oldest sites in our list; its parent company, Third Door Media, is even older.
Breaking stories, industry trends, feature announcements and product changes usually make the headlines of Marketing Land, which delivers fresh content every day. Besides, experts across all digital marketing disciplines are regularly featured and share their tips and tactics.
11. Moz
> Optimizing for Searcher Intent Explained in 7 Visuals – By Rand Fishkin
> The One-Hour Guide to SEO: SEO Strategy – Whiteboard Friday – By Rand Fishkin
> On-Page SEO for 2019 – Whiteboard Friday – By Britney Muller
Moz was founded by Rand Fishkin and Gillian Muessig in 2004 – back when it was known as SEOMoz. They two founders believe that there was not enough transparency and knowledge in the SEO world and they wanted that. Enter Moz – a place where information flows freely through its digital marketing articles and anyone who is willing to learn can do so.
Since then, Moz has released many SEO tools, some of which are free. After all this time, Moz remains one of the best places where anyone, beginner or not, can find answers for their SEO questions.
12. Neil Patel Digital
> How Digital Marketing Will Change in 2019 – By Neil Patel
> The Ultimate SEO Tool: Ubersuggest 3.0 – By Neil Patel
> 17 Charts That Show Where Social Media is Heading – By Neil Patel
Neil Patel is possibly the most recognizable face of digital marketing. He is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, an analytics software, and the founder of Kissmetrics, a product that provides insights about website visitors. Neil is also a NY Time best selling author, for his book ‘Hustle’.
Neil’s blog generates more than 3 million visitors per month. He talks mostly about SEO but he’s not shy with content marketing, eCommerce or social media. If you are a beginner digital marketer with a focus on SEO, Neil Patel’s blog is probably a place you already visit. Neil is also very active on YouTube, so if you are more into videos than articles, don’t forget to subscribe to his channel.
13. Search Engine Journal
> 5 Freaking Genius Content Ideas You Can Steal from BuzzFeed – By Jessica Foster
> Google Shares Top 3 SEO Factors – By Roger Montti
> Mark Zuckerberg at F8 Conference Announces New eCommerce and Payment Platform – By Roger Montti
Despite its name, in Search Engine Journal you are going to find a lot more than SEO topics. SEJ attracts more than 900k visitors per month, who want to learn more about SEO, Paid search, content marketing, and social media.
SEJ features news, interviews and how-to guides from marketing experts around the world and its mission is to make you “work smarter not harder”. Last but not least, SEJ is an excellent place to find digital marketing resources, such as e-books, podcasts and webinars, besides the well-structured digital marketing articles.
14. Social Media Examiner
> 10 Metrics to Track When Analyzing Your Social Media Marketing– By Ashley Ward
> How to Grow Your Instagram Following: A Strategic Plan – By Amanda Bond
> Is Facebook Organic Marketing Dead? – By Michael Stelzner
Social Media Examiner provides high-quality social media content and is a familiar place-to-be for many social media experts around the globe. In addition to its blog, Social Media Examiner produces podcasts and hosts conferences, as part of their mission “to help you navigate the constantly changing social media jungle.”
Apart from its blog, Social Media Examiner is the host of Social Media Marketing World and one of the biggest US communities which frequently hosts networking events and parties.
15. Social Media Today
> Facebook API Changes Mean You Can No Longer Auto Post Tweets to Facebook – By Andrew Hutchinson
> Why is Digital Marketing so Important for Business in 2019? [Infographic] – By Andrew Hutchinson
> 8 Ways Your Social Media Content is Annoying Your Audience – By Nathan Mendenhall
Like the name gives away, Social Media Today is one of the must-read blogs that social marketing adepts and inepts alike visit more often than they will admit. Social Media Today creates and curates conversations around the world’s most innovative business practices with a clear focus on social media. Marketing, social business, communication, customer experience, content marketing and digital strategy are usually the subjects covered in the many digital marketing articles of the site.
In addition to news updates, Social Media Today offers a space to share, learn, and network with other digital marketing professionals from around the world. It is also an excellent source for webinars, where you can find many on-demand videos to hone your social media marketing skills.
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