Online Marketing Blog

Community Manager Appreciation Day Infographic Offers Insight to CM Platforms, Roles & Traits

Women still hold the majority of Community Manager positions, although men are making gains, accounting for 39% across the U.S. This is a marked move towards gender neutrality compared to 2010, when just 31% of Community Managers were male, according to the annual Community Manager Report from Social Fresh. Their data shows that CMs might be more mature, or at least a bit older, than the stereotype indicates: the average age of a CM was 29 in 2011, but expected to reach 32 in 2013.

What are the best Search Engine Marketing blogs to follow? Which are the most popular? The chart above from Feed Compare shows a comparison of the RSS feed subscriber counts published by Feedburner for: Google Webmaster Central (red), Search Engine Land (blue), Search Engine Watch (green) and our very own Online Marketing Blog (purple).

As evidence of how successful a well executed business blog can be, TopRank’s Blog has about as many RSS subscribers as top industry publication Search Engine Watch (37,517/37,028). It’s a great position for an agency to have that kind of reach and also to be able to bring first hand, successful business blogging expertise to our consulting clients.

Lists and ranking resources can be tough and controversial. A while back we ranked top blogs on the topic of search engine marketing (SEO and PPC) that publish their RSS subscriber counts via Google’s Feedburner.

With changes in the search marketing industry, one can logically wonder, “How many SEM blogs really still post about search marketing?” To help answer that question, we took a look at 10 of the top search marketing blogs by RSS subscriber counts using the Wordle “word cloud” tool:

Matt Cutts

Search Engine Land

SEOmoz

Search Engine Watch

Search Engine Roundtable

Search Engine Journal

Online Marketing Blog

Search Engine Guide

Marketing Pilgrim

Pronet Advertising

I guess you could call this the “International Edition” of the BIGLIST Update of search marketing blogs as we have multiple countries represented including SEOs and PR professionals from the UK, New Zealand, Netherlands and USA. There’s plenty of flavorful writing, advice and tips so read on:

• Searchwritten – Netherlands based Ramon Eijkemans started this new blog as a study in content SEO, a topic that’s near and dear.

• 123 Social Media – Barry Hurd promises to educate business professionals on how to maximize the best in online marketing and technology.

• Ben Wills – While Ben doesn’t post as often as many other blogs on our list, his analytical, strategic, and pragmatic focus on online marketing is worth the read.

Going by the last month of updates, we’re now updating the BIGLIST of SEO blogs every second Friday. That should give us more time to filter out the better sites for inclusion. Read on at the bottom as there are several reminders on how to get on the list as well as stay on.

• The Big Wave Blog – Vikram Singh, Ronnie Soud and Melanie Korn contribute their insights on everything from online branding to events to SEO/PPC/Social Media marketing.

• SEO Woman - Former print journalist Adrienne Doss is now the SEO for an online medical equipment store based in San Antonio. She blogs about internet marketing, SEO and even has a category for ethics – which is refreshing to see.

Good things come to those who wait and dammit, we’ve been waiting a good long time for some new search marketing blogs worthy of addition to the BIGLIST. You can still get updates by following the BIGLIST Twitter account as well. Enjoy!

• WebmasterRadio.FM – Our friends from WebmasterRadio.FM have joined the cool kids and started a blog. Jody from WMR posts that you can now watch the live video stream, chat with all the other WebmasterRadio.FM listeners, listen to the live audio, and interact with your favorite shows – all on the blog.

• Advanced Web Metrics – The now ex-Googler web analytics guru Brian Clifton is the author of Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics and this is his blog. Note the blogroll for analytics bloggers.

I discovered several of the blogs on this week’s BIGLIST SEO blogs update via all the new Twitter followers we’ve been getting at the leeodden and the BIGLIST accounts. Welcome to all of our new friends! 70% of the blogs queued up for review this week didn’t make it to the list, but what we do have is a nice mix of social media, SEO and online marketing topics for you to choose from:

• Jacob Morgan – A nice mix of social, viral, SEO and marketing strategy from the founder of the SF Search Marketing Salon.

• Audette Media Blog – Adam Audette has a new blog for his internet marketing consulting business and while it’s a very new blog, we’re adding it to the BIGLIST because if it evolves into anything like what Adam does on LED Digest, it’s sure to be a hit. Check out the link building primer.

Here we go again with another BIGLIST update of SEO blogs. Enjoy!

• Hobo SEO UK – Shaun Anderson writes about a variety of search engine optimization related topics for his agency based in Scotland.

• SEM Blog ineedhits – If you’ve been in the search marketing game for a while, you may remember ineedhits who now online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advice.

• Brian Chappell – As a SEM and link building specialist, Brian posts tips, videos, reviews and plenty of Google inspired insights.

• BusinessOnLine Blog – Ray “Catfish” Comstock and Benj Arriola write a nice mix of SEO tips and industry observations on this company blog.

• I’m Not a Doctor – Stephen Peron blogs conversationally about SEO from San Diego and you’ve gotta love the SEO-inspired license plates.

For the first or maybe the second time ever, we skipped a BIGLIST update last Friday.  Things got a little crazy with SES London and other business tasks. But no worry, we have a great lineup of SEO blogs for you this week:

• SEO Copywriting – Let’s celebrate the launch of SEO and wordsmith guru Heather Lloyd-Martin’s snappy new blog about the magic of writing for users and search engines.

• Jon Myers Search Blog – Jon is the head of search and Associate Director at MediaVest in the UK writing about his views of the search engine marketing world.

• Own Page One SEV Blog  – Ann Arbor, Michigan based search marketing agency Pure Visibility runs the gamut of search marketing topics on this company blog ranging from PPC to local to SEO and even has a category just for Twitter.

This week’s BIGLIST update of SEO and social media blogs is pretty close to being the best batch of new blogs I’ve seen since we started publishing the list a year ago. What a great collection of resources! It really makes our industry better by having more and more people blogging their ideas, insights and even letting a few “secrets” slip out now and again.  Check it out:

Trail of the Fire Horse – Another excellent Canada based search and social media marketing blog comes this time from the very smart/savvy Dave Harry aka “the Gypsy”.

Search Enginuity – Clay Fisher is the Global Director of Search Marketing at Monster.com and he writes about search marketing industry news as well as paid search and analytics on a very cleverly named blog.

It’s pretty hard to compete with news like Microsoft offering to buy Yahoo for $44 billion or Amazon to buy Audible for $300 million, but there’s plenty to read on those topics and more on this week’s BIGLIST SEO blogs update.

• SEO Design Solutions Blog – You don’t see too many practical tips blogs these days and that’s why it’s nice to see Jeffrey Smith blogging all manner of tips on SEO from WordPress optimization to organic vs PPC.

• Smackdown! – Michael VanDeMar is full of piss and vinegar especially when it comes to Matt Cutts. What this blog lacks in subscriber numbers it makes up for in good humor.

• Learning SEO Basics – SEO student and fan of Kalena Jordan’s Search Engine College, Kimberly Bock (aka spostareduro) writes about all the basics of search engine optimization.

Another freezing week here in Minnesota means less time outside and more time checking out new search marketing blogs. I present to you dear readers, this week’s additions to the BIGLIST of SEO and Search Marketing Blogs.

• B(abble)log – A.C. (Anne Charlotte) Riley is a tenured online marketer and copywriter that blogs about all manner of marketing topics.

• Inside Facebook – Justin Smith, Jonathan Lipps and Collin Smillie blog about Facebook inside and out.

• NowSourcing – With Brian Wallace social media is the name of the game.

• Kolbrener BLOG! – I appreciated this advertising/interactive agency blog’s self description enough to use it as is here: “Our thoughts on branding, advertising, marketing, design, interactivity and whatever we want.” They also blog about marketing and search engine optimization.