A Non-PPC Reading List for PPC Marketers
In this industry it's important to keep up to date in all areas, not just your own niche. Here are some great sites to help PPC marketers branch out of their reading comfort zones.
In this industry it's important to keep up to date in all areas, not just your own niche. Here are some great sites to help PPC marketers branch out of their reading comfort zones.
As a head of search marketing, I don’t just work with the PPC department and have to keep up on the latest PPC industry news, updates, and trends. I also have to keep an ear to the ground on what is coming in social media, analytics, and SEO in particular. To avoid information overload and to filter out some of the noise and “optimize” my news feed, I have a few sources that are my go-tos for when I really want to nerd out but also when I need to research something in particular and a lot of times, in a cross-departmental nature with PPC. Today, I’d like to share a little bit of my habits and hopefully, you’ll find something useful for yourself here as well.
This is an area that can run deep and fast in terms of technical knowledge and across platforms. First, the evangelist in the subject matter, Avinash Kaushik’s blog Occam’s Razor is where I go when I want a deep dive into a particular space of analytics. The Google Analytics blog is where you sign up just to get updates, but when I can’t bother the Portent team, I like to see what Luna Metrics is talking about.
There is a LOT going on here any given day, so it’s hard to filter, but once you hone your own list, you’ll fly through it. For anything really future/forward-thinking, I like SEO by the Sea where Bill Slawski takes about Google patents and takes them apart. For more of a deep dive or how to type content, I check out the Moz blog, both by their staff and the YouMoz section, where contributors post some top notch content.
Setting aside the paid piece of the business and just focusing on the organic growth and engagement side, I have a couple of deep-dive places, including Social Media Examiner, which has great top hit lists on visuals in social media platforms, content and planning that are just fun to read. The other is Simply Measured, which supports their tool platform, but as a result has some good insights on proving the value of social media.
I might not get to read every post these sites put out, but when I need to do research on a particular channel, these are great resources with reliable information that I can count on.