16 SEO, Marketing, & Sales Blogs to Follow in 2016

As fellow 'Net professionals know, SEO is a rapidly changing game, as is digital marketing as a whole.

Staying on top of the newest features of paid search, best practices for SEO, and learning how to meet the evolving demands of customers is crucial to your continued success. Today I am sharing with you some blogs that I read regularly to stay ahead of the curve. While I haven't listed all of the blogs I read, here are a few of my favorites in no particular order.

1. Website Magazine

You are already here so you most likely know this is a great place to stay up to date on all things marketing and Web design related. If this is your first visit to Website Magazine, take a few minutes to look around and I am sure this will make it onto your daily reading list. 

Connect on Twitter: @WebsiteMagazine

2. Backlinko

A lot of blogs talk about white hat link building but don't always deliver actionable steps. I enjoy reading the Backlinko blog because it always delivers actionable tips and methods that you can implement to see meaningful results for your site of those of your clients. Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko also has a paid training course the opens up periodically. If you are looking to improve your skills, I suggest checking it out, it is one of the few programs I would personally recommend. 

Connect on Twitter: @backlinko

3. Neil Patel

Neil Patel is a content marketing machine. If you follow Neil on his personal blog, the Quicksprout blog, or even over at Crazy Egg you are bound to run across some actionable information that transcends the boundaries of traditional SEO to cover sales psychology, social media and paid ads.

Connect on Twitter: @neilpatel

4. Charles Floate

Many of you may not have heard of Charles before. His original company and blog was known as the "God of SEO" he has since retired that brand for a more personal blog hosted at charlesfloate.co.uk. If you are looking to master the dark arts, learn some Reddit gaming strategies, or refine your technical SEO you can find post on those topics and many more over on his blog. 

Connect on Twitter: @Charles_SEO

5. Local Profit Breakthrough/Local Client Takeover

In a previous post here on Website Magazine I mentioned the Local Client Takeover Facebook group. Since that post they have gone on to create a secondary training program called Local Profit Breakthrough. I have personally purchased the training and can say that in the section of it I have viewed so far they do a good job of covering the fundamentals. Aside from the paid training, they still have a free blog that covers so excellent tips and tactics for local SEO.

Connect on Twitter:  @LocalClientTO

6. Easy Blog Networks Blog

EBN is an SEO hosting company. SEO hosting is used for PBN networks and in general, SEO hosting is not recommended because most hosts are easy to identify and can lead to mass penalization and de-indexation of blog networks. EBN has taken several steps to ensure the safety of sites hosted with them but that is not what we are talking about today. The reason they made my list is because of their blog that covers common PBN issues such as footprints and how build better networks. If you are building or using PBNs and aren't reading this blog, you are wrong, check it out today. 

Connect on Twitter: @nzupan

7. Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy is a sales trainer, author, and a great story teller too. On his blog you will find a couple sections including business success and sales success, both of which are often loaded with golden nuggets. If you struggle with sales or you are a link builder who would like to improve your link placement rates (just another form of selling!) check out the sales success section.

Connect on Twitter: @BrianTracy

8. Moz

If you have been around the SEO world for any time at all you have more than likely heard of Moz. If you haven't, consider yourself in the minority. If you aren't following the Moz blog you are missing out. Check it out, bookmark it, and take daily as needed.

 Connect on Twitter: @MOZ

9. Hubspot

Hubspot is one of the leading sources of information in inbound marketing. They cover a lot of topics related to inbound and have a well sorted blog that makes it very easy to sort through the topics they cover. Like Moz, Hubspot should not be new to you, so I am not going to elaborate on them, just swing by the blog and you can thank me in the comments later!

Connect on Twitter: @Hubspot

10. WordStream

Holy PPC Batman! There was a time when SEO and PPC could be seen as arch nemesis but today, smart SEOs leverage data available from running PPC campaigns to improve SEO keyword targeting, improve landing page conversion rates, and get a better picture of the overall search landscape for their keywords. Wordstream has a blog loaded with tips, tricks, and actionable advice related to PPC. If you are looking for a place to brush up your PPC knowledge, the WordStream blog should be on your daily reading list.

Connect on Twitter: @WordStream

11. SEMrush

Many of you know SEMrush because of their competitive analysis tools. What many of you may have overlooked is the lively blog they have which covers a wide range of marketing-related topics. You can find everything from high-level concepts to more technical data science related posts. If you don't have the SEMrush blog on your reading list, 2016 is a good time to add it.

Connect on Twitter: @semrush

12. Unbounce

All of the traffic in the world won't amount to much if you cannot convert them into leads and customers. Unbounce offers landing page software that allows you to create landing pages, split test them, and track and improve conversion rates. As such, they have a blog loaded with tips that will help you build better landing pages and improve your conversion rates. 

Connect on Twitter: @unbounce

13. Conversion Sciences

This blog focuses on one thing: conversion optimization. If you take a moment to skim a few posts you will see this blogs goes deeper into many commonly known and used conversion optimization tactics such as video. If you have a good top level understanding of conversion optimization and are crazing some more in depth reading, check out the Conversion Sciences blog.

Connect on Twitter: @ConversionSci 

14. Content Marketing Institute

Over the past few years content has become a major part of the SEO process. Content marketing and link building have been used interchangeably and even though they are not the same, a good content strategy most certainly translates into more links, traffic, and improved rankings. If you are still struggling to master the content game, the CMI blog has several posts that can point you in the right direction.  

Connect on Twitter: @CMIContent

15. Creative Guerilla Marketing

Any business can benefit from some creative marketing ideas and when you are looking for out of the box ideas, guerilla marketing blogs can serve as a source for inspiration. This type of marketing can be used for PR, brand awareness and even link building campaigns. There are several good guerilla marketing blogs but Creative Guerilla Marketing blog is one of my favorite places to look for ideas.

Connect on Twitter: @CGuerrillaMBlog

16. Social Media Examiner

Social media can be a very effective marketing platform for some businesses. Many will argue that if you are creative enough you can promote any business via social media and to that I say, sure you could but it is not the BEST method for every company. That being said, Social Media Examiner is a powerhouse blog for all things social. Many of you are familiar with this site, if you aren't check it out when you have some free time, it will be worthwhile.

Connect on Twitter: @SMExaminer

Over to you!

What is your favorite marketing or sales related blog? Tell us about it in the comments below.