The Top 10 Online Marketing Blogs of 2017 for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners

Each week, hundreds of blogs discuss online marketing from many different angles. Some marketing blogs have a very scientific perspective, sharing their research based findings of how to grow audiences and expand customer bases; others take a “news” angle, reporting the “state of online marketing” each day; and finally, many write about proven strategies and how to apply them to different types of businesses.

But if you’re a small business owner or online entrepreneur, chances are you don’t care so much about marketing “news” as you care about what actually works. Because what you really want is more customers, right?

If growing your customer base with online marketing is one of your top priorities, then check out this detailed review of the top ten online marketing blogs of 2017 to find some resources that will give you tools to increase your profits. (And are perfect for your level of marketing geeky-ness).

If anyone can claim the title “the original blogger,” Seth Godin can. Since 1989 (pretty much before the internet even existed), he’s been blogging at least once per day! In fact, for a number of years he published new blog posts up to five times every day.

That quantity of writing might make you think that Seth’s quality standards can’t be high — but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Aside from delivering very valuable marketing insights, Seth’s blog is extremely easy to read. He’s a brilliant writer — the kind who you enjoy reading regardless of what he’s talking about.

As Seth says, “You don’t run out of things to talk about — why would you run out of things to write about?”

Covering a wide range of marketing strategies, the Vertical Response blog delivers actionable content to owners of online and offline small businesses. Check out this extensive resources for a never-ending supply of ideas for how to improve your marketing efforts, connect with your existing customers, and find new ones.

Every week, Social Media Examiner delivers a hands-on guide to executing social marketing strategies that will help to grow your audience. In each article, Social Media Examiner provides technical tutorials or specific marketing strategies, making them easily the “geeky-est” resource on this list.

Looking for an in-depth resource on running Facebook ads, utilizing Instagram stories for your business, or increasing your YouTube videos watch time? Social Media Examiner is the place to go.

Publishing about twice per week, the Internet Marketing Ninjas blog delivers content on a variety of marketing topics, such as SEO, social media tips, content marketing, and marketing news. This is an interesting blog to come to for diverse opinions and perspectives, since the articles come from a team of guest posters who, each of whom is an expert in his or her specific marketing field.

Buzzsumo is an online marketing powerhouse, and their blog lives up to their reputation. Several times each week, they publish quality, hands-on resources to help entrepreneurs learn how to more effectively market themselves online.

Topics such as content strategy, email marketing, and sales funnels are all shared in an easy to read, helpful format, enabling you to get more mileage out of your content.

Want to learn how to apply the cutting edge of online marketing tactics? Digital Marketer will show you how! Taking the “experimental” perspective for many of their articles, they share what they tried and what they results were, saving you time and failed attempts.

If you like reading about the results of testing different marketing tactics, then check out the Digital Marketer blog, where you’ll find articles such as “Advertising on Facebook? This Little Tweak Cut Our Lead Cost in Half” and “5 Ecommerce Experts Share Tactical Email Marketing Tips.”

Case studies are a valuable tool for discovering what strategies and tactics actually work, and that’s just what you’ll find on the Wishpond marketing blog.

Wishpond generously shares their knowledge and experience of marketing, based primarily on their own trial and error. With an archive of over 220 articles, you’ll never run out of ideas to fuel your business marketing efforts.

One of the most unique aspects of Brian Dean’s SEO blog is his “do the opposite” philosophy. Basically, the idea is: there’s so much competition that if you follow conventional advice (as everyone else is), then you’ll get lost in the crowd; therefore, you have a much better chance of standing out if you do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.

The primary way that Brian applies this philosophy is in his content publishing schedule — instead of “more is better” which seems to be what most bloggers do, Brian publishes just one, extensive, super high-quality post per month. The rest of the time, he focuses only on promotion.

And his strategy seems to work! With less than 35 articles, his site ranks on the first page of Google, receives around 100K visitors per month, and makes him a very good income.

To learn more strategies of how to grow your business with search engine traffic, check out the Backlinko blog.

A seasoned online marketer, Ron Sela writes about results based, profit-driven marketing tactics. His posts tend to be split between those that would be applicable for business owners, and those which would appeal more to online marketing professionals.

Ron posts new articles approximately once per month.

Named the #1 content marketing blog in the world by the Content Marketing Institute, Convince and Convert lives up to its reputation with an extensive, well-organized catalogue of high-quality articles and other resources. Their large staff of marketing professional writers provide a comprehensive perspective on how to effectively grow your business in this digital age.

A sampling of recent Convince and Convert articles includes: “Why the Future of Marketing is Curiosity, Not Creation,”  “The Six Sweetest Features of Facebook Advertising Right Now,” and “Why Video Holds the Key to Authentic Community Building.”

So much good information, but so little time to read it all! Am I right??

Ever since Google killed “Google Reader” a few years back, keeping up with a number of blogs has been a pretty big challenge. Sure, you can always subscribe to all of them by email, but if you’re anything like most entrepreneurs, you probably already get more email than you know what to do with.

The good news is that there are a number of blog reader apps that allow you to syndicate your own curated collection of resources. Simply sign up, then add your favorite blogs. These apps will then provide you with just ONE feed that collects and organizes the posts from all your favorite sites.

Personally, I like to use Feedly, www.feedly.com because it works great, has a good interface, and is completely free, but there are many options to choose from, such as Newsblur or Feedbin, to name a couple.

Whatever platform you do decide to read articles on, be it a feed reader app or email subscription, be sure to keep up with my blog at www.gillianperkins.com for articles on marketing and online business strategy. Each week, I share what’s actually working in my business and the businesses of my clients.