Digital Marketing Agencies Blog and Resources

Many people in the business world use SEO and digital marketing synonymously. Let's get down to business and make some sense of these buzzwords. Hint: They are NOT the same. "It's a common misconception," says Jess Holmes, founder and CEO of Wildish Digital, "SEO is a part of digital marketing. Digital marketing is comprised of a variety of marketing branches with SEO being one of those branches." To better understand where SEO lies within the field of digital marketing, we are going to first explore SEO. What is SEO? "The abbreviation SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization," explains Rob Smith, founder and director of Web Design City. "It is systematically increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to a website." This traffic is from search engines, and is referred to as "natural, organic, or algorithmic" traffic, according to Smith. In other words, "SEO is one specific way to drive organic traffic in an affordable and scalable way from search engines," explains Adam Ayers, CEO of Number 5. The key here is that SEO is targeting improvements in organic traffic, not traffic that you have to pay or advertise for. How does SEO work? SEO is a multifaceted field in and of itself, whose goal is "To increase the overall (organic) traffic of potential customers to the company's website" says Hamna Amjad, Content Marketing Executive at SIA Enterprises. To help dig in, Tom Buchok, Founder of Mailcharts explains, "SEO is all about optimizing the content on your website so that you can hang out with the cool kids on Google's Page 1. An agency that focuses on SEO will work with keywords, links, meta information and images so that your keywords and pages will rank higher in searches." SEO is about working with search engines. "Search engine algorithms rank a website on the search result based on various parameters," explains Smith. "Websites that rank higher on the first page for a search receive almost 95 percent more clicks. Research also shows that websites that rank higher on the search page have a better click-through rate (CTR) and traffic." When you search for something on Google, the organic search results are those that appear "directly below the paid search or pay-per-click advertisements," says Smith. Types of SEO "While SEO is not marketing," says Amjad, "it is a strategy to optimize your site so that it can rank higher in search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo among others. It includes both on-page SEO and off-page SEO methods." While SEO is just one component of internet marketing, it is still a multifaceted discipline with several specific ingredients. Let's explore the different facets of SEO. On-site SEO vs. off-site SEO "Onsite, as the name indicates are the activities that you perform on the website to improve organic visibility," explains Smith. "This involves improving the content and optimizing the website to provide value to the customers and to enhance their experience when on the site." Onsite SEO strategies include keyword research, technical auditing, on-site optimization, and user experience (UX) optimization for loading speed and navigation. Off-site SEO factors are also crucial. "When we talk of offsite SEO," says Smith, "we are referring to activities that increase the organic visibility of a website through actions carried outside the website. Offsite SEO is also called 'link building,' which aims to increase the number of reputable inbound links to a website. As Google uses reputable websites linking to your website as an indicator of reputation and popularity, link building is a major SEO technique." While link building is important, it's not the only off-site SEO tactic. Marcus Miller is an SEO and Digital Marketing Strategist at BowlerHat and a SearchEngineLand columnist. He says, "Something else to consider is visibility on third-party sites that themselves rank well on search engines. So, any true SEO strategy should aim to not only promote your site but to promote your business on sites that also rank well — maximizing your overall visibility." He suggests that reputation signals are also important to SEO. These signals come from consumer "reviews on Google My Business and other relevant portals." Other off-site SEO tactics include content marketing and collaboration, digital PR, promotion, and outreach. National SEO v. local SEO In addition to both on-site and off-site SEO practices, experts also point out the difference between tactics for national SEO and local SEO. Karthik Subramanian, a content marketer for Paperflite explains the distinction: "If you are a business that caters to your local community or city or town, you can hire an SEO agency. They will help you optimize your website for the local communities or specific regions. For example, a keyword such as 'Tennis shoes' is very generic and will give you millions of options on Google. However, 'Tennis shoes in Brooklyn' helps you cater to your local audience." SEO and digital marketing are not synonymous "The distinction between the two is that SEO is a tool within digital marketing," says Brock Murray, COO of seoplus+. "SEO is designed to properly optimize your website for search engines — a critical feature for your business." While SEO's focus on organic traffic is mission-critical for sustainable growth, digital marketing adds a myriad of other helpful tools to the toolbox. Digital marketing basics Now that we have heard about how SEO is just one piece of the digital marketing pie, let's branch out. What exactly is this all-encompassing field of digital marketing? Let's hear from the experts: "Digital marketing is a blanket term for all the various ways you can drive traffic to your digital funnel." — Adam Ayers, CEO of Number 5 "Digital marketing is just using the internet to market. For me, this includes email, pay per click, SEO, email, display/retargeting, affiliate, and social media at least. Really anything you do online or that shows up online would fall under digital marketing for me." — Dave Rohrer, Founder of NorthSide Metrics and co-host of The Business of Digital Podcast "Digital marketing encompasses the manner in which you can connect and network with new or existing customers. You can expect strategies like email marketing, content marketing, direct marketing, and more." — Tom Buchok, Founder, Mailcharts How does digital marketing differ from SEO? "SEO is a kind of digital marketing — one part of a much larger puzzle," says Miller, "SEO is a tactic that focuses only on getting your business to the top of the natural results on the major search engines (Google and Bing). While being visible on search engines is important, it is only part of a larger marketing strategy. You still need to get users to click through to your site and then to get in touch. There are also many other ways to market a business online or digitally — social networks being the big and obvious example here. But there is a whole suite of platforms and tactics that fall under the umbrella term of digital marketing." "The key difference," he adds, "is that SEO only focuses on getting exposure in the natural search engine results, while digital marketing is a broader approach that will typically involve more platforms, channels, and the entire customer journey." To better understand how SEO fits into digital marketing, let's look a little more in-depth at factors influencing a consumer's experience. A user's journey "All good marketing starts with the customer," says Miller. "How do they find out about your business? Is this something they need right now, like an emergency plumber? Is your business something that the end-user would research? What is the competition like?" "At Bowler Hat (my agency) we focus on helping smaller businesses. People like plumbers, roofers, financial advisors — traditional business categories. In most cases, a potential customer for these businesses will start on a search engine, so being visible when a user conducts that search is hugely important." Organic search engine visibility is SEO-centric, but its not the only way to get noticed. "Of course," continues Miller, "you can also run ads at the top of the search engine result pages which is most certainly not SEO but rather SEM (Search Engine Marketing)," which is also referred to as PPC, or pay-per-click advertising. "While there are no exact figures here, studies tend to show that organic results tend to get around 20 times the number of clicks that the paid ads receive — so, in an ideal world, good organic and paid search engine marketing is the best combo. Certainly, SEO and PPC work well together, combining SEO and another digital marketing tactic." SEO + ? = digital marketing SEO is one pillar of digital marketing. One pillar is cool, but it won't hold up much on its own. So, how exactly does this pillar fit in with the rest of the broader digital marketing field? "You'll often find that great digital marketing agencies are built on a foundation of great technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO, while simultaneously offering a variety of paid media, multimedia, and web design services," explains Venta Marketing CEO Max Prokell. Here some of the services or tasks that digital marketing encompasses: SEO Content marketing Social media marketing and management Influencer marketing PPC and digital advertising Website analytics  Online reputation management Many digital marketing agencies even combine SEO with the following creative marketing services, offering websites a fuller slate of options and turnkey solutions: Email marketing Conversion rate optimization Website or app development and design Lead generation Logo design Branding Display banners and ads Web hosting Site maintenance Ecommerce development Remarketing Marketing automation   To better understand how the fields of digital marketing and SEO are similar, yet different, we asked experts to help point out the biggest differences. Here's what they said: 1. Driving organic traffic vs. increasing online presence "The biggest difference between SEO and digital marketing is its purpose," says Greg Heilers, a partner at Jolly Content. "The job of an SEO Specialist is to drive more traffic to the company's website, along with revenue. The job of a digital marketer is to use any medium to increase the company's online presence. These two often work together to maximize their impact." 2. Technical appeal vs. human appeal "SEO is designed to appeal to the search rngines. Digital marketing is designed to appeal to consumers/customers, i.e. real people," explains Jann Mirchandani, Founder and Principal of Westchester Marketing Cafe. "SEO is where you tweak a myriad of different elements on your webpage so that search engines will recognize the page as relevant for a given search query. At times, this means writing copy in a way that may seem stilted. Digital marketing includes website content, email campaigns, social media engagement and, depending upon who you talk you, may also include paid advertising. It is written and designed to appeal to the human reader. As such, copy is generally more natural-sounding or conversational." Kaddie Fancher, Founder and Owner of KC Media, Inc agrees that SEO and digital marketing differ in their approach. Of the latter, she says, "It's also strategic, but it's more human. Digital marketing encompasses various strategies, sometimes including SEO, and also advertising, digital media placements, and social media. As a whole, digital marketing is really establishing your digital presence and continuing to serve your target audience where they are through a variety of mediums. Digital marketers will often work directly with an SEO expert to be sure their content is optimized." 3. Short term vs. long-term strategy "SEO is a longer-term specific strategy to gain organic rankings in Google and the other search engines for website pages and other online properties," points out V. Michael Santoro, Co-Founder of Vaetas. "Digital Marketing is the holistic term and encompasses all online marketing services including SEO, social media, content marketing and paid advertising (PPC and social ads). SEO also includes using content marketing to rank in the search engines for more than your website pages. For example, images, YouTube videos, and articles can be optimized to rank for desired keyword phrases simultaneously with your web pages. However, SEO is blending with the other digital marketing areas to achieve results. For example, obtaining social signals, e.g. your visitors sharing your content is an SEO signal that helps with rankings. However, obtaining quality backlinks is still the number one SEO priority." Santoro wasn't joking about the longer-term strategy. Marilyn Heywood Paige, Chief Marketing Officer at Paige Black elaborates: "SEO takes six to twelve months of investment to begin to see results, that's the biggest difference. SEO is a long-term play. It is an investment that will reap dividends in earning more credibility in the marketplace. It also is a strategy that builds on itself and builds momentum over time, while digital marketing does not build momentum. If you stop paying for advertising, you stop getting leads. Digital marketing garners faster leads. Digital marketing, (AdWords or PPC advertising) is more of an immediate lead generator. You place ads and people click on them and go to your landing page or website. The success of this tactic relies on how well you have optimized the campaign with keywords and how good the landing page is that the person lands on when they click your ad. Neither solution is easy. Both require strategic know-how, attention to detail, and consistent effort." 4. Technical skills vs. soft skills  "The biggest difference between the two disciplines is that SEO marketing involves a lot of technical skills besides soft skills," says Carsten Schaefer, founder and CEO of SaaS tool crowdy.ai. "In other words, besides content writing, link building, outreach and other 'softer' skills, it also requires you to have the technical knowledge of how websites work. You need to know a lot about site structure, schemas, website speed, scripts, and things of that nature. On the other hand, digital marketing encompasses a wide variety of skills, most of which are soft skills: PR, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing. Tthese are all disciplines that require creativity primarily, and technical skills are nice to have." 5. Narrow vs. broad scope "The biggest difference between SEO and digital marketing is the scope of what they cover," suggests Alex Membrillo, CEO of Cardinal Digital Marketing. "SEO is very specific and only applies to ranking a website in the search engine results. As the name suggests, you're optimizing for the search engines. This includes Google, Bing, and Yahoo. It also expanded to include voice search results in the search engines. If you ask 'Siri, what's the best pizza place near me?' the results you receive will be based on search engine optimization. Digital marketing is very encompassing. In fact, most digital marketers consider SEO an important component of digital marketing. However, it's not the only component." 6. Offense vs. defense "The main difference between the two is that SEO is more defense and digital marketing is more offense," advises Mikaela Delia owner of Mikaela Delia Creative Marketing Agency. "SEO is very internally focused between keyword strategy, web development, etc., while digital marketing focuses more on external strategies that funnel traffic to a brand's digital properties. An SEO agency will focus solely on helping to improve your search rank, while a digital marketing agency will help you reach other main objectives such as increasing organic impressions, conversions, assist in online advertising, etc." 7. Marathon vs. sprint "We like to compare SEO to a marathon, and paid media to a sprint," states Matt Erickson, Marketing Director, National Positions. "SEO is going to focus on getting you valuable organic traffic with content, technical improvements, linking profiles, etc. Your budget on SEO will usually stay fairly consistent. A digital marketing agency, on the other hand, may do everything from video production to Facebook Ads to PPC and Amazon advertising. So you will often find agencies that do everything and some that only focus on social media or Google. So at the end of the day, each will be striving for different goals when it comes to your overall marketing." "While there is some crossover," he adds, "SEO's key focuses are to drive traffic, get your site higher in the rankings, and improve your site's domain authority or DA. SEO is usually a longer play for results — a slower and steady climb will net more month-over-month organic traffic that you can turn into opportunities. Digital marketing, whether it is social media, Google Ads, YouTube ads, etc., is more direct and aimed at driving opportunities faster. Basically, you are paying for eyeballs and attention." Hiring decisions So, here is the big question: Should my company hire an SEO agency or a digital marketing agency? What to expect from an SEO agency "Hiring an SEO agency means you are employing an agency that will solely focus on getting your website ranked in the search engine listings," explains Patricia Walterick, CEO of Open Space Digital. "To some degree," Rohrer notes, "an SEO agency may have some competency in other aspects of digital marketing, but most of their team and expertise will be wrapped up in just SEO. This means that when hiring an SEO agency you shouldn't expect them to be running your paid search, email, and affiliate channels. If that is what you need help with, then you should look at something more like a full-service digital marketing agency. These are agencies that might not be experts on EVERYTHING but most certainly have a good understanding and are well versed in multiple aspects of digital marketing." With an SEO agency, says Walterick, "Typically you will pay a monthly retainer for as long as you require their services. Most companies will keep SEO agencies on retainer even after they have achieved the desired rankings for their keywords so that they can track and maintain those rankings." What to expect from a digital marketing agency "A digital marketing firm offers services for all online marketing services including social media, content marketing, online advertising, and SEO," describes Santoro. "They may even provide a service to help a client build their online brand." "The difference between hiring an SEO agency and a digital marketing agency is that the latter will have specialists working on all aspects of your digital marketing," says Murray. "SEO agencies naturally have much narrower views on the overall process of growing a client's business since their only focus is on SEO. A digital marketing agency will have specialists in all areas of the industry, including social media, content, public relations, web development, as well as SEO." Additionally, adds Walterick, "A digital marketing agency will assess your current situation and listen to your business goals then offer a number of options for you to consider. You and the agency may adjust your budget and various ad campaigns throughout the year as they determine what works best for your niche and clientele. The digital marketing agency is focused on acquiring leads for your business and increasing sales." Hiring a digital marketing agency doesn't automatically mean that all of your services will be handled in-house. As Santoro says, "many digital marketing firms outsource to more technical SEO firms or white label these SEO services as their own. With SEO becoming more complex, using technical SEO firms can help to produce better results for search engine rankings." Hiring advice for subcontracting and white label SEO Why would a digital marketing agency contract an SEO agency to work on your account? "We see many digital agencies subcontracting SEO to specialty companies because of how difficult SEO can be, advises Alexander De Ridder, co-founder of INK, a content optimization platform for writers. De Ridder continues, "SEO is an extreme specialization in an area of constant, immediate change. SEO specialization falls under four general centers of excellence: management, strategy, technical, and content. SEO agencies need to know everything about new technologies such as AMP and PWA, and how it impacts organic search, click-through rates, on-site user satisfaction. They need to know how to rank for local search, international search, multi-language search. They need to be JavaScript and code experts to optimize slow sites. They need to be browser experts and know the latest updates. They need to be Google algorithm experts, experimenting and tinkering to find out what works now that didn't work yesterday. They need to be site structure experts, content experts so that the content can be optimized for semantic intent. And not at all finally, be great at SEO research such as content gap analysis and keyword research, be site migration experts, and so on." So, how do you choose which service provider is right for your situation? Should you go with a one-stop-shop with more general knowledge in a variety of digital applications? Or should you go to an SEO expert to focus on the basics, then add on a full-service agency later? Do you have in-house marketing handling some tasks, but need help from an outsider for others? Don't worry. We asked marketing experts for advice on how and why to hire either an SEO or a digital marketing firm. Here are the six questions you should be asking: 1.  What are your needs? "Really it all depends upon your requirements and strategy," says Miller. "If you know that the only part of your marketing you need to address is improved visibility in organic search then an SEO agency is what you need. If you really want to look at strategy and the best tactics or know that your customers or product or service would be better promoted on social media or via some other means, then you need a digital marketing agency. Certainly, if you want an agency that will look at building awareness, engagement, conversions, retention, upsell and just generally working through the customer lifecycle, then you need an agency that can handle more than just SEO. It is worth noting as well that digital marketing is such a broad subject that no two agencies are exactly the same and some may be stronger in some areas than others. What really matters here is understanding what you need and then finding the agency that is the best fit for your unique requirements." Your company is unique. Hiring an agency to help isn't a one-size-fits-all decision. Quincy Smith, Head of SEO and Content at Ampjar gives this advice: "I firmly believe you should hire for your needs, so I'd advise against hiring a digital marketing agency if you only need help with your SEO. However, if you need help with your entire marketing strategy, then an agency is a good solution but you might lose a bit in individual expertise. That tradeoff is the biggest difference. Every agency will tell you that they can do SEO, but they likely aren't as skilled in it as a company where that's their only focus." 2. Is your current focus on niche keywords or a big-picture goal? "If your objective is to increase revenue or leads via organic search, the best bet is to hire a firm that specializes in SEO," advises Kent Lewis, President and Founder of Anvil Media. However, he adds, "If you're looking for SEO as part of a larger service mix, consider a digital marketing agency. Although I started my SEO career in 1996, I've always been a proponent of a multi-disciplinary/multi-channel approach to digital, including paid advertising, PR and email, among other disciplines. At Anvil, we're 40 percent SEO, 50 percent paid media, and 10 percent other digital disciplines, to provide our clients with the optimal mix. The benefit of going with a digital agency is seeing the bigger picture and integrating digital efforts across channels." Walterick agrees. She says,"if you are looking only to have a company assist you with getting your website to rank for your niche-specific keywords, hire an SEO agency. If you want a company to assess your big-picture marketing plans and campaigns by handling your email lists and marketing, paid advertising, and other online promotions, as well as work on ranking your website, hire a digital marketing agency." 3. What would you like to achieve? "When choosing between hiring an SEO agency or a digital marketing agency, think about what you'd like to achieve, suggests Mark Pratt, Marketing Manager at ClickSend. "Do you want one agency to be able to handle all aspects of digital marketing? If so, a digital marketing agency is the better call. If you want specialized technical SEO know-how, you may choose an agency where their main focus is SEO. A good SEO agency should be able to assist with more advanced technical SEO, like structured data, canonicalization, hreflangs (for international SEO), site structure, redirects, page speed, etc. They should be able to help set up correct reporting and analytics, as poor implementation of analytics can cause huge headaches later down the track. They also might have good relationships established with website owners to assist with your backlink strategy. Furthermore, any SEO agency worth their salt will be up to date on all the major search engine algorithm changes." 4. How much of a commitment are you looking for? Marcus Clarke, Founder of Searchant.co shares this perspective: "If your focus is solely on increasing organic traffic (perhaps you handle social media in-house), then an SEO agency might well be your best option and offer the best value for money and expertise. Ask for case studies in your niche to see what they might do for you. Hiring a digital marketing agency is generally a larger commitment as they will be across more parts of your business, and you should be prepared to work in a more integrated way with them, giving them more access and sharing more information with them to allow the to promote you in various ways." 5. Are quick results your focus? "If you want to hire an agency that can give you faster results due to the available departments within their business, a digital marketing agency is your best bet," says Garret Seevers, VP of Marketing for Azuga. "They can also offer you additional services depending on the agency (e.g. email marketing and social media marketing)." 6. Are you hiring with a budget in mind? "[W]hether you need an SEO agency or a digital marketing agency, majorly depends on your requirements and budget," advises Amjad. "An SEO agency can help you with improving your site's rankings. And you can hire a digital marketing agency if you want to enhance your company's overall exposure using digital media. It can be quite costly if you are using paid ads in your strategy." A caution about hiring We will leave you with this helpful advice from Calloway Cook, Founder of Illuminate Labs, a dietary supplements company: "As a company looking to hire, it's more challenging to analyze the effectiveness of an SEO agency than a digital marketing agency. Because Google rankings tend to increase with time regardless (due primarily to increased backlinks to the website), an SEO firm may attribute increases in a client's Google rankings solely to their efforts, but this may not be accurate. This is a nuanced point, but it's impossible to objectively parse out how much the SEO firm's work contributed to rankings improvements and how much would have happened anyway. Hiring a digital marketing company, on the other hand, is easier because you can measure exactly the ROI of their efforts. Whether it's a Google Campaign, PPC Campaign, or a social campaign, it's easy to determine whether the efforts of the potential hire are generating a positive ROI for their clients."

In a blog titled "How to Become a Better Blog Writer in 30 Days," SEO godfather Neil Patel says, "If you want to write better blog posts, then you MUST read other great writers inside and outside your industry. It's one of the most vital blog writing tips you need to memorize and put into action. The books, journals, and blogs that you'll read may not be closely-connected to your topic (e.g., lead generation), but you're training your brain to think outside of its comfort zone and give you more great ideas. In turn? You'll be better equipped to write a great blog post. The truth is that if you don't read great writing, you don't really know how to do it — and that successful blog that you dream of will evade you." For new bloggers or people new to content marketing, weeding out the good writers from the bad can often be difficult. We asked marketers, bloggers, and writers for suggestions of "great writers" that budding content marketers can read and emulate. Here are their recommendations: Blogs Ahrefs"Ahrefs blog — it's all geared around SEO and content as a foundation to a good strategy. I like this for content because it's not just about the content. It's about great writing and proper structure to ensure your content is getting read. They dive into lots of SEO stuff on the blog, but reading their posts and writing style gives you a great idea of what industry leading content should look like. I personally get lots of tips from them because they have access to data on large scales that the average person doesn't, so you can always learn something interesting from their posts." — Brad Ormsby, Founder and CEO of Colorstone Marketing BiggerPockets "BiggerPockets is one of the leading blogs for real estate investing which covers all possible topics related to this matter. The blog publishes a couple of new articles every day, thus being always up to date. One of the best features of this blog is that it features a large number of writers with different expertise and style to fit the needs of every content writer looking for inspiration. When I first started writing about real estate, BiggerPockets was one of the sources where I was always going for reliable information presented in a way accessible to just about anyone." — Daniela Andreevska, Marketing Director at Mashvisor Content Marketing Institute"Content Marketing Institute — the name says it all. This is an excellent blog to follow for content marketing. They discuss everything from telling stories within your content to getting more shares from your content. If you just read their daily posts, you'll not only learn about the topic but also get a feel for what high level conversational writing is supposed to look like. I've personally learned quite a bit about writing conversationally and keeping points concise in my posts." — Ormsby Problogger"Their posts are all highly professional and focused on getting ROI from your content. If you're interested in learning how to not only write like the pros but also make money from your posts, then you should check them out. Their posts are heavily text oriented, usually with only one photo which shows that you don't need all the glitz and glam to get excellent results from your blog." — Ormsby Searchengine Journal"SearchEngineJournal.com is a great source to learn more about the latest digital marketing trends that are data-centric. Their articles are informative and concise, and their writers and contributors share expertise and tips I have used and will continue to use on behalf of my agency and our clients." — Holly Rollins, President of 10xdigital Writers Andy Crestodina: Orbit Media"Orbit Media's blog gets my vote as an indispensable resource for content marketers, particularly posts by its co-founder Andy Crestodina. Andy's posts are well-researched and equally well-written. Andy's writing style is concise and to the point with little fluff. He addresses common topics from a unique angle which makes it always interesting to read." — Stephen Jeske, Content Strategist, MarketMuse Ann Smarty "For how-to posts, nobody writes better than Ann Smarty. She mixes detailed explanations with screenshots to illustrate her points…and it is clear that she put tons of research into every post before she even begins to write. Ann also makes good use of text sculpting. That is, she uses bullet lists. She also uses one-sentence paragraphs. Readers are never assaulted by huge blocks of text, one following the other. This is an important skill for any kind of writing. How-to posts are not really my thing, although sometimes I have to write them – especially ghostwriting for others – so Ann's work is a great inspiration and her posts serve as great examples to emulate." — David Leonhardt, President, THGM Writers Brene Brown"Brene Brown writes about shame and vulnerability, which are difficult enough to think about, much less WRITE about. Yet she addresses it simply, clearly, and in a way that allows the reader to feel safe. It might look easy, but you know it's not if you've ever had to write anything about a sensitive topic. Networking (my topic) can be a sensitive topic for many people who feel like they don't have the "right" personality for it, so I'm learning a lot from Brene on how to make people feel normal and how to address their fears." — Beth Bridges, The Networking Motivator Brian Dean: Backlinko"Brian Dean understands how to write for the web. He uses short concise sentences, asks questions throughout, and like other great writers, writes at a middle school reading level which Contently has shown increases shareability and improves the user experience. Writers should pay attention to Brian's use of line breaks. Rather than writing in typical paragraph blocks, Brian breaks his articles up into short sentences followed by line breaks which makes his content feel much more conversational. Brian also typically builds context and intrigue for his articles by sharing a story in the intros of his articles. Brian's content feels like you're having a casual conversation with him. Combined with his use of stories, I've been able to learn from his writing style to create content on otherwise "boring" topics, and create something interesting, easy to read, and shareable." — Kevin Ho, VP of Marketing, Wishpond Brian Solis"Brian Solis is an award-winning author, blogger, marketing analyst and keynote speaker who's written seven books, including Engage! — a guide for creating online content that builds loyalty and trust for your brand. Solis writes his blog posts in first person, so if you like his books you're able to get more content straight from him on the blog." — Tyler Horvath, CEO, TytonMedia.com Heidi Cohen"Heidi Cohen is a blogger and speaker who built her marketing career at well-known brands and has developed actionable guides for newbies and experts. Grounded in established marketing fundamentals, she provides insights on social media, content marketing, and mobile marketing." —  Horvath John Jantsch"John Jantsch is the author of several bestsellers, including Duct Tape Marketing, Duct Tape Selling, The Referral Engine, and more. He coined the term "duct tape marketing" to define useful, simple, and affordable marketing that is effective at solving a wide array of problems. The blog covers all things marketing, from SEO and mobile SEO to social media and lead generation." — Horvath Jon Dykstra: Fat Stacks"I recommend the Fat Stacks blog written by Jon Dykstra. I recommend reading and following his content because he writes in a conversational tone that is easy to follow, and he starts his posts with interesting stories and facts that draw you in. Not only are his posts easy to read, they are chock full of SEO and website growth tips that actually work and are based on his own experiments." — Stacy Caprio, Founder, Her.CEO Joshua Hardwick: Ahrefs"I'd suggest that for anyone who utilizes content marketing as a means of promoting their product or service should check out the Ahrefs Blog where the main writer is Joshua Hardwick. What's great about the content they put out is how informative their articles are. They also dive deep into the topic and share their expertise in the most digestible way. Also, they're great at promoting their own product between the lines of regular content. That also shows how good of a job they do when it comes to topic selection, and that's really important when you are just starting out — not to write on a certain topic because its shareable if you don't have a deep understanding of it. I always enjoy their blog posts, guides, how-tos, and I believe any new writer, especially in a tech industry will benefit from checking out their blog!" — Jakub Kliszczak, Marketing Specialist, CrazyCall Frank Sonnenberg"Frank Sonnenberg's bio mentions being named one of "America's Top 100 Thought Leaders." His posts read like a thought leader's. They are informal, written to the reader, yet professional in every way. He uses plain language, targeting a small business audience. Frank sculpts his text very well. He uses bullet points, numbered lists, and short sentences, and also uses colored headings (a bit more than I'm willing to do). Frank's work is just a little less personal than I feel like writing, but a great example for me when I am ghostwriting for others. A lot of my clients like an easy, informal writing style, but as a ghostwriter, I am rarely in a position to get too personal on their behalf." — Leonhardt Rohit Bhargava"Marketing expert Rohit Bhargava is the founder of the Non-Obvious Company, which provides workshops for business teams. He's a Wall Street Journal best selling author of five business books and a professor of marketing at Georgetown University. His blog is laden with expert knowledge on brand humanity, marketing psychology, consumer behavior, marketing strategies, social media, content marketing, and how culture and trends affect the way businesses should do marketing." — Horvath Ross Hudgens at Siege Media"Ross Hudgens at siegemedia.com is a really great writer and a fantastic example of how to write compelling copy. As an industry expert, he goes into real depth with each article, sharing his own opinions and methods as well as analysing others'. The most compelling thing about his style is that it's a relaxed, easygoing tone, but the text is still full of relevant data and examples. It's a fantastic balance of being easy to read, but full of detail and depth. It's made us realise that great content has to be comprehensive, as you only create real value for your audience when you get into the details of your subject. Without the depth, you're really just writing for you, not for them. " — Sam Orchard, Creative Director, edgeoftheweb.co.uk Ross Tavendale: SEMrush"I am a BIG fan of Ross Tavendale's column on SEMrush. It's clear that he knows his stuff, and he knows how to communicate it to others well. It might be a stretch, but based on his background and current mastery of SEO concepts Ross strikes me as the David Ogilvy of search engine optimization.Ross cuts through the noise by sharing truly novel insights about digital marketing analysis (usually on a tactical level).Ross has mostly helped me discover ways to tactically improve my content, but he also regularly covers techniques to come up with new and exciting ideas for content." — Tony Mastri, Marketing Specialist, MARION Marketing Agency Roy Ackerman: Cerebrations"Roy Ackerman is an unlikely thought leader, with few followers on any social platform. But he writes thought leadership just the same. He talks about business and finance, as well as about politics and social issues. He often writes from the perspective of his personal life, including his Jewish heritage, as well as from his experiences with clients. It is on this last point that he serves as a great example to other bloggers. He reminds his readers that he has clients. He reminds us of what he does, and that he does it well. And he does so in a way that is completely without boasting or selling. I really need to remember to blog about client experiences more frequently." — Leonhardt Seth Godin"Seth Godin is a professional writer who has authored over 18 bestselling books and made a huge splash in the online marketing arena. He teaches The Marketing Seminar, an online course on marketing strategies and tactics. His blog is equipped with free ebooks and videos, as well as how-to posts on writing better content, authentic storytelling, branding, thought leadership, and the psychology of marketing." — Horvath "After reading Seth Godin's book, Linchpin, early in my career, I have enjoyed the daily insights on his blog. Seth focuses on concise insights that provoke thought about the real workings of the world (and how they pertain to marketing). Seth's approach goes against the recent wisdom of content marketing and SEO experts by not writing 1000+ word blogs to gain visibility. Godin's insights help me improve my introspection as a person and marketer, and guides me to search for new opportunities daily." — Mastri "Pay special attention to how Seth Godin (especially his books) writes BRIEFLY. He addresses just one idea, one topic at a time. Too often, we try to do too many things with one article or story. Check out how short his posts are at his blog." — Beth Bridges, The Networking Motivator Seth Williams: REtipster"The REtipster blog is written by Seth Williams, who is an experienced real estate investor. The best thing about this blog is that all the information, advice, and tips come from the personal experience of the writer, which makes it very reliable and relatable. The articles cover a wide range of topics from real estate investing as well as reviews of major products and services in the industry, which are always detailed and completely honest." — Andreevska Sonia Simone: Copyblogger"Sonia is the heart and soul of Copyblogger, which is a fantastic resource I have been turned onto for a while now. What I find especially helpful is her ability to break down practical insights for content marketing as a whole. With 'content marketing' being used as a catch-all phrase that can lack substance, Sonia keeps the strategies simple and actionable. This simplicity does not sacrifice depth of thought, so not only do you receive strategies you can use, but also the insight as to why they're effective. Also, she has a great wit that comes through, which helps lighten up potentially dry, boring topics. Her Sonia at Copyblogger email blasts are a welcome addition to my inbox. Any writer will benefit from her wealth of knowledge, easy to digest style, and direct messaging." — Shaan Patel, Founder and CEO, Prep Expert Stephen King: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft"Obviously Stephen King is a very prominent fiction writer that most of us know, and in this (relatively thin) book, he discussed various techniques and principles that we can apply on our content — even if we are essentially writing non-fiction This is, as mentioned, a book about fiction writing, so we will need to differentiate between principles and techniques that are specifically for fiction, and those we can apply on our content marketing work. (Thankfully, this is not very difficult). The book is written in a light, rather playful manner where King used anecdotes and illustrations to explain various techniques. Essentially content marketing is about telling a (good) story, and this book especially helped in that aspect. As a non-English native writer, this book taught me various techniques and industry secrets in English writing, for example, to avoid using adjectives unless it's absolutely necessary. Many techniques we can apply, and a very fun read overall. Also, I guess most of us writers always have that dream to write a successful novel, and this book will help in that regard." — Steve Kurniawan, Nine Peaks Media Steve PavlinaSteve Pavlina covers various subjects in his blog from relationship to health advice, but he's especially famous with his productivity lessons. In his blog, you get two things (or more, if you are willing to read his other sections): productivity tips (a thing a lot of content creators are struggling with), and an example of good blog writing. It's important to note that blog writing requires different approaches than for example, writing a book. Steve Pavlina's blog is an example of a well-structured blog that is designed to engage online readers, so we can use various techniques like how he used bullet points, when he uses bold text to emphasize things, and so on. Also, his productivity lessons are useful to help us structure our work ethic and avoid procrastination. I often struggle with productivity in general, especially when I have a lot of projects and deadlines at hand. This blog has helped me overcome this subject. Besides that, there are many practical examples we can learn from this blog on how to write an engaging blog post, how we should use images and videos, and so on." — Kurniawan Theodore Schleifer at Recode"One of the best blogs focusing on tech news, and especially Silicon Valley news, is Vox's Recode. It has plenty of quality writers, but I'd recommend reading articles written by Theodore Schleifer, a Senior Reporter on that site. Tech market today is one of the fastest changing and evolving fields. It's a challenge to find writers that are able to comprehensively write about those topics. What's really impressive with Mr. Schleifer is the attention to detail and the way he concisely and clearly presents the financial aspect of tech companies. Mr. Schleifer writes relatively long and well-researched articles that aren't hard for laymen to understand. They're backed by facts, and you can see by the author's eloquence that he was involved in covering politics. His articles are based on facts but also centered around stories that will hold the interest and attention of readers. Reading the articles published on Recode and by Mr. Schleifer has helped me orient myself in this large industry. The news and topics that the author delivers are useful because they're educational, unique and very perceptive." — Jeremy Rose, Director, Certa Hosting Vicki Batman "For a highly personal style, Vicki Batman has it down to a tee, blending personal stories and self-promotion. She talks a lot about things she likes. This is what readers want from authors: to get to know them, as well as their books. Many of her posts feel like she's just sat down across the table at the diner, and has something to share. Vicki writes short, crisp blog posts that get to the point. She doesn't need to sculpt her text, although she's not afraid to use one-line sentences and ample illustrations. I rarely write quite that informally, although I find her a great inspiration for setting the stage for some of my longer posts in a more personal way. And I do find her to be a great example when writing less business-oriented posts." — Leonhardt   A note from the author: We want this to be a living document to help new content marketers, copywriters, and more to find ‘great writers' in their industry and out. If you have a blogger, reporter, or writer that has been influential to you within your content niche, drop me a line at ahays@bestcompany.com, explaining your suggested blog/writer and what takeaways we should look for. All suggestions are welcome.

If you are new to digital marketing, a wealth of information is available to you. If you don't know where to start, you may feel overwhelmed. We asked marketing experts for their suggestions of favorite and influential books and courses for new digital marketers. Here's what they said: Books to read This Is Marketing by Seth Godin “Anything by Seth Godin but one of his latest is This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See. He is a master who really understands what drives people to purchase from a practitioner’s perspective using his first-hand experience and simple language not jargon” — Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder and CEO, Mavens & Moguls   “Seth Godin is a legend in marketing. For anyone new to the game, I get them Seth's recent This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See. At 288 pages, it is a bit lengthy, so if I know they aren't the reader  type, I'll happily pitch in for an audio version. I highly recommend this to both new and established marketers, so regardless of where my newest team member is at in their career, I'm getting them this!” — Yaniv Masjedi, CMO, Nextiva   "This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See by Seth Godin is an incredible book that will help a marketer shift their thinking about connecting with the right audience rather than a mass audience." — Brian Williams, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Prolific Interactive   Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin “I recently read Lost and Founder: A painfully honest field guide to the startup world by Rand Fishkin, the founder and former CEO of Moz. It circles around his experience running arguably the most famous company in the world of SEO. The book is not only a startup story, but also a guide to marketing management and is a must-read for anyone getting into marketing.”  — Katherine Rowland, Digital Marketing Executive, YourParkingSpace.co.uk   Purple Cow by Seth Godin “For me as a digital marketer, the best gift would be Seth Godin's book Purple Cow. It takes on the topic of being exceptional and producing remarkable products, content, and businesses. In today's world when people simply copy-paste past ideas, it's crucial to find out how to stand out and how to do it right, especially when it comes to the world of marketing, promotion, and ads. That's why I believe Purple Cow is a great read and therefore a great gift for any digital marketer!” — Jakub Kliszczak, Marketing Specialist, CrazyCall   The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell “Malcolm Gladwell is one of today's most influential thought leaders whose insights could easily help transform any business. In Tipping Point, he describes that small intrinsically supernatural moment when an idea catches fire. Gladwell goes on to explain what goes into making a trend spread and how anyone can take advantage of this tipping point.” — Nate Masterson, CMO, Maple Holistics   Everybody Writes by Ann Handley “Get your favorite digital marketer a copy of EverybodyWrites: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content. Whether it’s SEO optimization, ad content, blogs, or social media posts, digital marketers are constantly thinking about the best ways to communicate their message. This Wall Street Journal bestseller delivers what it promises for developing good content that attracts and retains customers.” — Alex Membrillo, CEO, Cardinal Digital Marketing   “For a book, I’d recommend Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley.” — Raquelle Dickerson, Director of Marketing, Seo.com   The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott “[I recommend] The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. As the sub head says, he teaches you “How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, Newsjacking, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly” and again he has been there and done it, so he tells it like it is not theoretically but from the trenches.” — Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder and CEO, Mavens & Moguls   Blinkist subscription “My number one gift idea for all digital marketers is a subscription to Blinkist.After having it spruiked to me by podcasts left and right, I finally decided to give it a try for myself and have been raving about it since.As marketers we are constantly inundated with content in the form of blogs, ebooks, whitepapers, webinars, podcasts, and books and any marketer can tell you there's not enough time in the day to get through it all.Blinkist is fantastic because it condenses books down to just the key takeaways and as marketers, all we want from the content we read is fresh insights.There's a wealth of business and marketing books and books about other subjects as well, like psychology and decision-making.” — Greg Moskovitch, Digital Marketing Consultant and Growth Marketing Manager, Rome2rio Online courses Marketing is always changing and those in the industry need to constantly be learning and beefing up their skills. Here are a few suggestions for online educational resources suggested by our experts: Codeacademy or Hubspot “Marketing is a fast-paced, demanding, and stressful job that many underestimate. For a new marketer, there is a lot of learning to be had. Because they are just starting their marketing career, reimbursement to relevant online courses such as those at Codecademy and Hubspot Academy would be a great gift.” — Raquelle Dickerson, Director of Marketing, Seo.com   AI course from MIT “The recommendation from me is MIT’s online executive certificate Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy.It was a gift given to me by my employer to brush up on emerging trends in Artificial Intelligence. The course materials are developed by the brightest minds at MIT, both the Sloane School of Business and CSAIL. The course takes six weeks and is a combination of videos, online group discussion, and coursework. The coursework is structured in such a way that at the end of the program the student ends up with a practical plan for implementing an AI program around a challenge of their choice.I’ve read a number of books on the subject, and am hands-on with voice interfaces, but the comprehensive nature of the course, combined with very active group discussions (including some that became real-life meetings in some cities), made the course far more valuable than any single book on the subject.” — Sean MacPhedran, Director, Future Platforms, SMITH.co   Udemy “Since I've learned almost everything I know about digital marketing from Udemy, I have to recommend Udemy courses as a useful (and addictive) gift for digital marketers. The e-learning platform has over 6,000 video-based courses on digital marketing alone, plus a whole bunch of other subjects. You can get a broad overview of topics like social media marketing, SEO, PPC, content marketing, and analytics, or you can learn a more specific skill, like how to use ClickFunnels or build Facebook chatbots.Courses are rated and reviewed by other users, so you can quickly filter out the best and most comprehensive courses. You can easily gift any course straight from the course's landing page.” — Chloe Brittain, Owner, Opal Transcription   Coursera “I recently took ‘Viral Marketing’ and ‘How to Craft Contagious Content’ and I am currently taking ‘The Strategy of Content Marketing’ — both insightful useful courses.” — Sean Allan, Digital Marketing Manager, Aware Corporation Ltd.   Do you have a product that would be a good fit for this new digital marketers gift guide? If so, feel free to reach out to ahays@bestcompany.com

Finding the right gift for your friend who just graduated with a marketing degree or got their first digital marketing job can be daunting. What will they find helpful and practical for their new life?To help you find the right gift for your friend, brother, cousin, or co-worker, we put together this list of highly recommended products that digital marketers, new, old, and in-between will be sure to appreciate. Coffee club “Marketers are known for burning the midnight oil, or in my case, rising at the crack of dawn. For many, coffee is a must-have to get them through the day. A great gift for marketers is a monthly coffee subscription service. My top pick is Atlas Coffee Club. Every month they'll send you globally curated coffee from around the world, including Columbia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.”  Suggested by Alex Membrillo, CEO, Cardinal Digital Marketing Motivational mug What about something to put that fancy coffee in? What about a mug with a motivational or marketing-specific saying like this one from Proud Gifts, that says, “I’m silently judging your font choice,” or one of these from Red Bubble with quippy sayings like, “Internet marketing because it's cheaper than therapy.” Desk calendar “Being a marketer means you need focus and attention to detail; these have to be ingrained in you. If they're not, you're in for some serious issues. I keep a whiteboard calendar on my desk with cork and space for notes. I keep a digital calendar in addition to this but I find it helps to write dates out and visualize my week/month. I use this one!Buy some extra marker colors for color-coordinating notes.” Suggested by Brett Middleton, Owner, Brett Middleton Digital Image used with permission from Hamelin Notebook with superpowers This new notebook line from French paper company Hamelin comes in seven colors and comes with superpowers. That’s right — super powers. It comes with a free app called SCRIBZEE, which allows users to scan, save, share, and file images of notes for easy access. Stylish laptop stand Consider getting a sleek laptop stand. A new tech gadget that really has a purpose is always helpful. This model is one of Rachael Lovette’s favorite marketing-marketing related gifts she has received. Suggested by Rachael Lovette, Digital Marketer, Microsoft FidgetCube “Most people have seen fidget spinners, but another fun (and helpful) fidget gadget for digital marketers is the FidgetCube. It’s the perfect desk toy designed to help you focus. It’s addicting and fun and an awesome gift for any digital marketer who logs a lot of desk or computer time.” Suggested by Alex Membrillo, CEO, Cardinal Digital Marketing“It's perfect for the people who drank lots of coffee to stay awake but are forced to sit (or stand) behind a computer. It lets you put your energy into something, and it's great for de-stressing during stressful calls or hard web updates.” Suggested by Dylan Myatt, Digital Marketing Associate, Advice Media Stationery “Another gift that I am sure will be appreciated by someone starting out in marketing (or any new career) would have to be new stationery. I myself use a 10 subject project book, that allows me to separate all of my different projects neatly, and find the information I need easily. The receiver will be sure to thank you for a set of new pens, notebook, and perhaps a few highlighters for good measure.” Suggested by Katherine Rowland, Digital Marketing Executive, YourParkingSpace.co.uk Ember smart mug “Give the gift of control. Instead of burning your tongue on a hot cup of coffee, keep the temperature just right. An Ember Mug is embedded with technology that allows you to change the temperature of your drink to a preferred setting. Don’t let your coffee get lukewarm on a cold winter day, take control with a perfect hot drink on a cold afternoon. Staying in control of the heat setting on your drink gives you the comfort of knowing that you can enjoy your drink without being rushed.” Suggested by Leo Friedman, iPromo Light filtering glasses What about a pair of blue light filtering glasses. A lot of people are prone to headaches and these help alleviate those, as well as some eye strain, that you get for constantly looking at a computer screen. Suggested by Dylan Myatt, Digital Marketing Associate, Advice Media Fashion statement Image used with permission from Fat Joe SwagThis “Mo Links Mo Problems” t-shirt comes in men’s and women's styles, and will be sure to catch the eye of link-builders everywhere. Check out fatjoe.co for more SEO swag. On top of that, FatJoe sends 100 percent of the profits to the Children’s Cancer Research Fund.Another suggestion is this Redbubble double-whammy for fans of SEO and Heisenberg. Spark Hustle Grow “One website I recently came across was Spark Hustle Grow. It’s a monthly subscription box website and an online community for female entrepreneurs. The box includes four to six items like planners, books, and chic office supplies.” Suggested by Clare Bittourna, Marketing Designer, Codal Kangaroo water bottle “...as a young business owner with a number of friends who are in the digital marketing game, there is one gift which I have given one of them previously, that I think every marketer should have.The Kangaroo water bottle is versatile and 100 percent leak and spill proof. The dishwasher safe container features a built-in compartment which can store ID, gym card, money, and much more — perfect for a busy marketer who may not have time to go home before hitting the gym.”  Suggested by Ollie Smith, Chief Executive Officer, ExpertSure Fancy chocolates Image used with permission from The Chocolate Therapist“Does every digital specialist want digital gifts? Maybe they just need a glass of wine and a box of chocolates every now and then. There's a dark chocolate pairing collection (for red wine and port), a milk chocolate collection (white wines), a beer collection, tea collection, and whisky collection. When given with a bottle of someone's favorite wine, this gift is a fun and completely unique experience.” Suggested by Julie Nygard, Founder, The Chocolate Therapist Honorable mentions "You Reap What You SEO" stickersThis cheeky notebook that says, “Knock, Knock, Who’s There? No one because your average position is 6.8”Do you have a product that would be a good fit for this new digital marketers gift guide? If so, feel free to reach out to ahays@bestcompany.com