If you’re new to blogging and social media, there are great resources online to help you learn more about internet marketing. In fact, there are so many that it may seem overwhelming! However, there are a few that provide such consistently great resources that they rise to the top, and I turn to them on a regular basis:
- Hubspot: This is one of the leading sites for inbound marketing, which is what the best internet marketing is all about. Rather than pushing information out to people via direct mail, billboards, commercials, etc., inbound marketing creates good content that is useful for people, optimized for search engines, and easy to share online. This makes it easier for people to find your site when they’re looking for your services. Hubspot’s website has a plethora of marketing resources that you can use.
- Social Media Examiner: A relatively new site that was started in 2009, Social Media Examiner has become a great resource for online marketers. This online magazine is ranked as one of the top 10 business blogs and has over 600,000 visitors each month. One of the reasons it’s so popular is that it focuses on how to use social media for business – whether you’re trying to figure out how to grow your blog, create your business LinkedIn page, or use Facebook to drive traffic to your site, you’re likely to find it on Social Media Examiner.
- Social Media Today: This site bills itself as the “world’s best thinkers on social media.” Like Social Media Examiner, it includes some how-tos, but it also gets into some topics that are more in-depth and advanced, such as digital advertising, crowdsourcing news, and developing a social conversation calendar. Don’t be intimidated by this, though; Social Media Today is a great site with numerous authors contributing good content daily.
- Copyblogger: Copyblogger focuses on the most important thing that you can do to grow your website and attract visitors: provide quality content online. Their blog posts cover topics such as how to become a better writer, how to write optimized copy for your blog, and how to get more people to subscribe to your blog. If you’re ready to make quality content the focus of your blog (as you should be!), Copyblogger is a must-read site.
- ProBlogger: The focus of this blog is to help bloggers develop income streams, but even if that’s not your goal, this is a great resource for learning more about blogging. Much of the work involved in deriving income from a blog is the same as that involved in developing a good blog that people will want to read – providing high-quality content that is optimized for the web and easy to share online. ProBlogger will provide you with tips on designing, writing, and promoting your blog – and more.
Be forewarned that once you visit these sites, you might find time passing by unnoticed as you click through and get caught up in the interesting posts!
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