My Daily Digital Marketing Reading List

Last week I had the honor of sitting on a webinar panel of distinguished Digital Knowledge Managers led by Duane Forrester, VP Industry Insights at Yext, Melissa Walner, Director, Global SEO/Global Marketing at Hilton and Glenn May, Sr. Category Manager, Local Marketing at T-Mobile to discuss, among other things, career paths in Search Engine Optimization. It was a really exciting chat. I get enormous pleasure helping people to succeed in the Digital Marketing profession. I've also written about SEO's can move up the corporate ladder.

Nearing the end of our discussion, Duane asked us in his closing question, "If you could provide one final takeaway for our audience, what would it be?"

All the panelists unanimously agreed that the future is bright for anyone looking to get into the SEO/Digital Knowledge Management space. We encouraged people to deepen their understanding of the technical aspects of digital marketing while also developing their soft skills like public speaking, communication, presentation, teamwork and listening. And one area that I mentioned was, if you choose a career in Digital Marketing commit yourself to staying current on industry trends by reading thought leadership blogs. I mentioned a couple off the top of my head that I read every day, but time didn't permit me to rattle off my full list.

Which gave me a perfect excuse to write this blog post about my daily reading of digital marketing blogs.

Each morning along with my first cup of coffee, I open my computer to the headlines across the digital marketing world. This has been my ritual since I got into the space, and has been my saving grace in terms of keeping up with an industry that is in a constant state of change. In my view, if you don't have a go to daily reading list, you will be destined to fall far behind the pack very quickly.

There's no shortage of reading supply. Rather, the big challenge is culling it all so that you can quickly scan the headlines and drill into articles of interest. That's the real trick! How do we keep all of the information organized?

My solution was programming my browser start page with a "Protopage" dashboard-- a nifty drag and drop page builder on which you can add all sorts of widgets including blog widgets, stock widgets, weather and shortcuts (a few years ago I was using iGoogle for that purpose, but it was unfortunately discontinued.) I've got about 30-40 widgets on my front page, each consisting of 3 clickable headlines. In about 5 minutes I can scan all my selected blogs for new posts, and click on articles that open in a new tab. Once an article is read, it appears as a strikethrough text on the dashboard.

It took a little time to set up, but otherwise Protopage is very simple. From there, all you have to do is pick and choose your favorite blogs.

I've got a range of reading that includes articles straight from authoritative sources like The Official Google Blog, The Google Ads Blog, Google Analytics Blog and Google Webmasters Blog, to social media blogs from Facebook and LinkedIn. These sites typically contain high level information and new announcements from the publishers.

Next I've picked a few widely cited sources including Search Engine Roundtable, SEM Post, and Search Engine Land. These fantastic resources not only report announcements, they also do an excellent job of providing the industry sentiment on the latest news. As an example, Barry Schwartz in his Search Engine Roundtable frequently reports on how leading experts are reacting to Google algorithm updates in the discussion groups.

Rounding out my list are an assortment of technical blogs like Bill Slawski's SEO By The Sea which reviews Google patents, and The Acquisio Blog that discusses strategies in PPC.

Without further adieu, here my friends and connections are my top 24 blogs for the Digital Marketing Manager's morning read. Needless to say this list is not the least bit exhaustive so I am going to ask you for a favor.

Please add your favorite read in the comments below, so that we can all add it to our collective reading lists and knowledge base!

1. The Official Google Blog
2. The Google Search Blog
3. Google Public Policy Blog
4. Google Ads Blog
5. Google Analytics Blog
6. Webmasters on G+
7. Google Webmaster Central Blog
8. Think With Google
9. Google Webmasters On YouTube
10. The YouTube Blog
11. Bing Blogs
12. Yahoo Advertising
13. Facebook Newsroom
14. The Official LinkedIn Blog
15. LinkedIn Engineering Blog
16. Search Engine Roundtable
17. Search Engine Land
18. SEO By The Sea
19. The SEM Post
20. The Moz Blog
21. The Acquisio Blog
22. The Yext Blog
23. SparkToro Blog
24. The SEMrush Blog

--Gary Steel consults clients on Online Marketing and Advertising, and is Google Search, Display, Video Analytics, Yext, and Acquisio Certified. If your business could use some improved online visibility drop me a line. If you like what you've read here, I hope you will 'like' and 'share' this post, and follow me on LinkedIn. #steelview