Starting and growing your digital agency is tough. Whether you’re going at it alone or you manage a small team, there’s a lot to learn and even more to keep up with.
In hopes of saving you a bit of time and helping you find a new go-to resource, we wanted to put together a list of the best blogs to follow that will help inspire you as a business owner.
Below is our top choices. Enjoy!
General Marketing
Digital Marketer
When it comes to learning up-to-date marketing tips and execution, Digital Marketer is definitely an online resource you can’t afford to skip.
Not only is the blog full of amazing content that can help you stay a step ahead, they also have free PDFs and in-depth courses along with a membership suite called DMLab to help closes any gaps in your marketing knowledge.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
How To Build A Marketing Dream Team For Your Brand (Even If You Aren’t A Marketer)
Local Advertising on Facebook | Generating Leads for Niche Fitness Studio
Free Market Research Tool | 13 Ways to Use Amazon.com to do Market Research
Hubspot
If you’re not on Hubspot’s email list, you’ll want to hurry on over and sign yourself up.
Similar to Digital Marketer, Hubspot covers a wide range of topics ranging from Social Media ROI to Inbound Marketing and quite a bit more.
They have a huge Marketing Library full of free e-books and downloadable templates that offer a lot of knowledge and insights into just about every topic of marketing and design.
You could literally spend weeks in this one part of the website alone (although, I don’t recommend that).
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
7 of the Coolest Experiential Marketing Campaigns We’ve Ever Seen
5 Strategies to Build Trust and Sell Through Email
9 Signs It’s Time to Grow Your Content Team
Neil Patel & QuickSprout
Let’s face it. This list wouldn’t be complete unless we included Neil Patel’s blogs: NeilPatel.com and QuickSprout.
Whether you’re running a SaaS company or a digital agency, Neil’s blogs are a wealth of knowledge.
Both of his blogs cover up-to-date topics about general digital marketing.
Here are some must-read articles from the sites:
Neil’s Personal Blog
Facebook Advertising Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide
8 Unusual Link Building Strategies That’ll Catapult Your Rankings
The Definitive Strategy for Driving Organic Traffic Without Ranking in Google’s Top 10
QuickSprout
The Ultimate Guide to Using Google Search Console as a Powerful SEO Tool
The Future of Content: What It Will Look Like
What’s in Your SEO Arsenal? 6 Skills All SEOs Need to Have
Smart Insights
Though most of the content on the site is related to general digital marketing tips, there are great resources in here that are specific to running and growing your digital agency.
For example, the Agency Growth Management Toolkit is a great place to start you’ve hit a couple snags along the way in your business.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
Marketing Trends for 2016 – Will we be in a post-digital era?
15 unstoppable trends which will shape marketing in 2016
Key Email Marketing Stats
Agency Specific Sites
Jason Swenk
If you’re struggling to land clients, then Jason Swenk’s blog is for you. Jason has been an agency owner for more than 12 years and has built it into a multi-million dollar business.
He knows the struggles agency owners go through and his blog is full of advice, templates, and other resources to help you start and scale a successful business.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
How to Eliminate Leaks that Drain Agency Profit
How One Agency is Seeing Huge Success From Direct Mail
Closing a Pitch, Calculating Profit, & Managing Team Priorities
Marketing Agency Insider
If you’re looking for another resource site with information aimed specifically at running an agency, then Marketing Agency Insider is one to add to the list.
The man behind this blog is Paul Roetzer. He founded a well-grounded inbound marketing agency called PR 20/20.
His site is dedicated to topics about running, managing and growing a digital agency and he even has a course to help you along the way.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
How to 10X Your Agency Results: Discover 3 Tactics to Fuel Future Success
The Indispensable Agency: 10 Tips to Drive Value
Pitch Perfect: A Guide To Owning The Creative Pitch Every Single Time
Duda Blog and Resource Center
Here at Duda, our customers vary from large directories to freelance web designers and all kinds of web solutions providers.
While we’ve built our responsive website builder and mobile site builder to help make creating mobile-friendly, responsive sites easier and faster, we’ve also dedicated time to creating in-depth content and white labeled resources that help our customers secure more clients.
Our Resource Center is packed full of design assets and sales collateral to help agencies in various aspects of running a successful business. And we cover multiple topics about growing your business.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
Best Web Design Practices for Landing Pages
5 Tips to Get More Web Design Clients
Straight from the Camel’s Mouth: A Reseller’s Take on Selling DudaOne
Web Design
Smashing Magazine
When it comes to staying on top of web design news, Smashing Magazine is a great place to start.
Whether you’re looking for a tutorial about coding or you want to spruce up your knowledge of the latest practices in UX design, you’ll find something worth bookmarking.
Blog posts aside, they also have some great books and ebooks to help you stay in the know with leading industry design.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
Infinite Scrolling, Pagination Or “Load More” Buttons? Usability Findings In eCommerce – Smashing Magazine
Getting Ready For HTTP/2: A Guide For Web Designers And Developers – Smashing Magazine
How To Integrate Motion Design In The UX Workflow – Smashing Magazine
The Next Web
One of the best industry blogs for web design is hands down The Next Web (aka TNW).
Although the blog covers a lot of tech related article, they also publish articles around web design that are top-shelf. You can see the design related content in the Design & Dev section of the site.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
Google Chrome is officially killing Flash starting next month
Efficient Responsive Design Process – Smashing Magazine
Combining UX Design And Psychology To Change User Behavior – Smashing Magazine
Web Design Tuts+
If you’re just starting out in web development and design, it can be hard to find helpful content online. Thankfully, Web Design Tuts+ stepped in and filled the void.
They have thousands of tutorials that teach everything from JavaScript to CSS and beyond. If you want to brush up on some new skills, you’re sure to find more than one course or blog post to help you do just that.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
How to Code an Inline Sharing Menu
Get Started With Web Animation
Want to Learn CSS Layout? Start With This Course
SEO and PPC
WordStream
Larry Kim is the mad scientist behind this business and PPC blog. Aside from a shared love of unicorns, Larry and I also share a love of awesome content, which is exactly what you’ll find on WordStream.
There’s a lot to love about this blog, including five courses on topics of digital marketing and PPC as well as a wealth of information in the form of webinars, whitepapers, and videos.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
RankBrain: 4 SEO Strategies You’ll Need to Survive
5 BIG Changes Coming to AdWords: Everything You Need to Know
The 21 Best PPC Marketing Articles of the Year
Moz
The Moz website has some of the best SEO-related content around.
There are four blogs within the site itself and each one has a few things worth bookmarking. Rand’s Blog has very interesting insights and you can even contribute to the YouMoz blog, which could land your post on the main Moz Blog itself.
Whether you like SEO or not, this is a must-go place so that you can keep up with what’s going on in SEO and online marketing.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
10 Predictions for 2016 in SEO & Web Marketing
Why I Stopped Selling SEO Services and You Should, Too
On-Page SEO in 2016: The 8 Principles for Success – Whiteboard Friday
Backlinko
Looking for actionable insights on SEO? Then Brian Dean’s blog, Backlinko, is the one for you.
Even though the blog has less than 40 blog posts on it, it is by far one of the best SEO blogs around.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
We Analyzed 1 Million Google Search Results. Here’s What We Learned About SEO
SEO Tips: The Complete List (201 Actionable Techniques)
(Case Study) This SEO Checklist = 48.7% More Organic Traffic
Search Engine Watch
Want a daily dose of SEO and Google? Then check out Search Engine Watch. The blog publishes articles every day on everything from local SEO to PPC and much, much more.
While it can be overwhelming to try and read every article they post (don’t overwhelm yourself here), there is a lot of information to help your digital agency stay current in the areas that matter most.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
The importance of user reviews for local SEO
8 Ways Content Marketing and SEO Can Work Together
Google reveals its three most important ranking signals
SEOHacker
If you have yet to read this blog, you’re in for a treat. The SEOHacker blog was started by Sean Si, who also runs an SEO agency — not to mention his own SaaS company called Qeryz.
Sean and his team are very knowledgeable when it comes to digital marketing and their content shows it.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
Lessons Learned From Losing All Our Rankings After a Bad Site Revamp
Why We Gave Our Conversion Rate Optimization Services for Free
How Google RankBrain Affects SEO in 2016
Inside Google AdWords Blog & Think with Google
Keeping up with industry news is a must. With that being said, it’s always good to follow the blogs that set up the industry to begin with.
Think with Google is one of the best Google blogs to read and follow.
They have an amazing newsletter you can sign up to so that you’re always in the loop as far as what their studies are showing, what’s working and what’s changing. (Seriously, do yourself the favor of joining.)
On the other hand, the AdWords blog is right in the thick of all things Google PPC so if your business offers this service or uses it for business purposes, then it’s a must-read blog.
Insider Tip: AdWords has it’s own YouTube Channel with a ton of videos to help teach you the ins and outs of PPC, and then some.
Here are some must-read articles from the site:
Why Consumer Intent Is More Powerful Than Demographics
Your Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile
Identifying the Micro-Moments Within the Customer Journey
That about wraps up our list!
We’d love to know what your favorite blogs are to read and follow, too. Are there any that you think we should add to the list?
Comment below and let us know.
The post 18 Blogs to Read When Growing Your Digital Agency appeared first on Duda Blog.
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