It’s been a wild year.
In 2009 (so far) there has been a ton of great content published in the internet marketing space.
As the year comes to a close I wanted to share the best posts from the top internet marketing blogs I read regularly. If you missed these I strongly recommend reading them.
Share some of your favorites in the comments – I’d love to read them.
1. 10e20
The gang at 10e20, who added the ever-snarky Rebecca Kelley to their ranks earlier this year, have consistently put out some of the best content on the web. They focus much of their content on social media marketing but cover a range of other web marketing topics.
Three best posts of 2009:
- 9 Useful Social Media Extensions and Plugins
- The 6 Most Awesomely Bad Website Flash Intros
- The Best Niche Social Media News Sites Right Now
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2. Audette Media
Adam Audette’s blog is a reliable source of in-depth and insightful writing on web marketing. He may not post as often as we’d like, but the quality is never lacking.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Marketing a Website: It Takes a Village
- SEO Tips for Large Ecommerce Sites
- Adding Value Online: Data – Information – Knowledge – Wisdom
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3. Blogstorm
Patrick Altoft’s blog has been the source of some great newsbreaks and tips this year. A definite must for your RSS reader.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Free Travel Search Data from Kayak – Brilliant Linkbait
- JavaScript Links Now Passing PageRank & Anchor Text
- Wikirank is the most accurage keyword research tool ever
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4. Conversation Marketing
I’m a big fan of Ian’s wit – and his experience and success in the web marketing world can’t be denied. Great advice, straightly-delivered with a glass of snark to wash it down.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Why Gourmet Died: Publishers, pay attention
- 22 Things You Don’t Know About Your Customers
- Internet Marketing is About The Narrative
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5. Cornwall SEO
Lyndon Antcliff is a successful and widely-recognized SEO with a knack for creating viral linkbait. His blog never falls short of succinctly delivering solid advice.
Three best posts of 2009:
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6. David Naylor
Dave is one of the few SEO’s whose advice is often taken straight to the bank. He’s been a leader in the field for over ten years. He and his team post great advice and tips at this blog.
Three best posts of 2009:
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7. Distilled
It’s hard not to like the Critchlow brothers and their team at Distilled – they’re a sharp bunch and quite friendly. They don’t post terribly often at the Distilled blog, but when they do it’s always worth reading.
Three best posts of 2009:
- 11 Things I’ve Learned While At Distilled
- A letter to my 2007 self: assorted advice
- 5 Conversion Rate Improvements You Can Do In Under 5 Minutes
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8. Dosh Dosh
Maki is a bit of a mysterious figure in the web marketing world. We know he’s a Philosophy student in Toronto, Canada – and that he writes one of the most widely-read and compelling web marketing blogs in the world. I’m not sure there’s much more we need to know.
Three best posts of 2009:
- 11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action
- The Most Powerful Way to Presell Any Products or Service
- The Unhealthy Obsession With DoFollow Blog Links
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9. The Future Buzz
Adam Singer covers a breadth of topics related to marketing online. Consistent quality like this is hard to find. I find myself frequently bookmarking and sharing Adam’s posts – I suspect you will too.
Three best posts of 2009:
- 50 Viral Images The Web Shared in 2009
- 44 Buzzworthy Marketing Interviews
- 45 Blog Post Ideas That Always Generate Buzz
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10. Gray Wolf’s SEO Blog
Gray Wolf should need no introduction. One of the most consistent voices in the SEO space, Michael Gray’s writing is never dull and quite often some of the best advice you’ll find on the issues of the day. His how-to guides are awesome as well.
Three best posts of 2009:
- How to Use Evernote to Create the Ultimate Post Conference Reference Guide
- The Affiliate Marketing Newbie’s Guide To Finding Niches
- How to Abuse the New DiggBar for Fun and Profit
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11. Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
Avinash is arguably the most trusted voice on web analytics. Google’s “Analytics Evangelist” focuses largely on Google products (like Google Analytics), but his advice and insight are second to none.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Brand Measurement: Analytics & Metrics for Branding Campaigns
- Six Tips For Improving High Bounce / Low Conversion Web Pages
- Google’s Search Based Keyword Tool: Monetize The Long Tail of Search
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12. Outspoken Media
It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again: Lisa Barone is a robot. Her posts here are always well-written, entertaining and contain often indispensible advice for online marketing. Not that Rae & Rhea’s posts are anything to sneeze at either.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Google Openly Profiles SEO’s as Criminals
- I’M TELLING! (or reporting your SEO competitors)
- How To Easily Create Your Own URL Shortener With WordPress
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13. The ROI Revolution Blog
ROI Revolution are specialists in PPC and conversion optimization. They deal centrally with Google services (AdWords, Analytics, Website Optimizer, etc) – and their blog posts often utilize these platforms for tips, screenshots and walkthroughs. Excellent reading for anyone using Google services for online advertising.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Viewing A/B Experiments in Google Analytics
- Have You Used Google’s New Wonder Wheel?
- 10 Words Or Less: Put Your Unique Selling Proposition To The Test
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14. Search Engine Guide
“The small business guide to search marketing” is often a guide to much more than that. With a strong pool of authors consistently churning out compelling content there’s a lot to like here.
Three best posts of 2009:
- 7 Steps to improving Conversion Rates
- Damn it Jim, SEO is an Investment, Not an Expense!
- Perfect SEO Costs Extra
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15. Search Engine Journal
Probably one of the few real powerhouses in terms of the sheer volume of quality content being produced. Search Engine Journal, managed mainly by Ann Smarty (another robot, I’m convinced, who doesn’t sleep), is a reliable source of actional insights, how-to’s and tool reviews.
Three best posts of 2009:
- 4 Tools for Advanced Google SERPs Analysis
- Why Your Company Needs Social Media
- Getting Control of Your Social Media Life
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16. Search Engine Land
Search Engine Land, lead by Danny Sullivan, is THE source for news and tips on search engine marketing. Danny is arguably the most widely-read and well-recognized name in the SEO space, and his writing and insight never seem to falter. Combine that with huge talent pool he’s collected to post at Search Engine Land, and you have a reliable stream of indispensible search engine knowledge.
Three best posts of 2009:
- What Is Real Time Search? Definitions & Players
- Michael Jackson’s Death: An Inside Look At How Google, Yahoo & Bing Handled An Extraordinary Day In Search
- URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should You Use?
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17. Search Engine People
Search Engine People is quickly climbing the ranks as one of the most trusted and consistent sources of search engine marketing news and tips. Headed up by Ruud Hein, 2009 has been the year they’ve really hit their stride on this blog – with a big boost from killer guest posts from the search community.
Three best posts of 2009:
- The Definitive Guide to Identify Nofollow & Juiceless Links
- Google Analytics Mega-Post: 23 Google Analytics Tips and Tweaks
- 17 Ways to Accelerate Links to Your Link Bait (and Other Highly Linkable Content)
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18. SEO Book
This is probably the blog I would most sorely miss should it ever come to be shut down. Aaron Wall’s thoughts on search and the broader online world are, hands down, the most insightful and compelling I’ve found. Missing one of his posts is a mistake I don’t make often.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Broken Reward Circuitry: Money vs Happiness
- Why 99%+ of Flat Rate SEO Services Are a Scam
- The Search Taxonomy: Getting Inside the Mind of the Searcher
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19. SEO Gadget
Penned by Richard Baxter, this blog is a consistent source of hands-on and actionable tips – things you can put to use right now for your own SEO campaigns.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Get high rankings building authoritative, irrelevant links?
- Google Page level penalty for comment spam – rankings and traffic drop
- Top Page Analysis meets HttpFox – an awesome SEO Tool combo (SEO Tips)
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20. SEOmoz.org
Rand Fishkin and Co. have truly built an empire over the last few years with this blog – and they did it by putting out some of the best SEO content day-in and day-out. You can spend a week pouring through the archives here and just barely scratch the surface of actionable tips.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Xenu’s Link Sleuth – More Than Just A Broken Links Finder
- Charting ‘Unique Keyphrases’ Using Advanced Segments
- Link Building from A to Z
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21. SEOptimise
I must admit I’m a relatively new reader of the SEOptimise blog – and I can’t help but feel I got to the party a little late. Some of the best content you’ll find on Search Engine Marketing and web marketing overall.
Three best posts of 2009:
- 10 Free Google SEO Tools Everybody Should Use
- 45 Link Baiting Resources: Ideas, Techniques, Case Studies & Drawbacks
- How to Get 5000+ Subscribers for Your Boring (SEO) Blog
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22. Small Business Search Marketing
Matt McGee knows his stuff. He blogs mainly about small business (hence the name) and is a particularly solid source of local SEO news and tips.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Cheap SEO is Cheap SEO
- Google’s Local Business Dashboard is Borderline Useless
- Do you have a “Lawn Map” to show?
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23. Stunt Dubl
Todd Malicoat should need no introduction. He’s a veteran of SEO and social media marketing – someone with true in-the-trenches experience who isn’t just spouting theory. He doesn’t post often these days, but when he does it shouldn’t be missed.
Three best posts of 2009:
- 16 Things I’ve Learned About Busines while Being an SEO Consultant
- Link Development Training: How Link Building for SEO is Like Picking Up a Girl
- Stunt Train Search and Social Marketing Manifesto 2.0
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24. Sugarrae
Another blog where the post frequency has dipped of late – but there’s no doubt Sugarrae is someone whose advice should be taken to heart. A veteran affiliate marketer who built her own empire from the ground up and learned what works and what doesn’t along the way.
Three best posts of 2009:
- Affiliate Datafeeds and Duplicate Content
- Thesis Tutorial – Creating Custom Categories
- You Don’t Need SEO to Rank in Google
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25. TopRank Online Marketing Blog
TopRank’s blog, written by Lee Odden and his team, is one of the most widely-read web marketing blogs in the world. Spend some time reading their posts and you’ll see why – they work hard to produce unique, actionable and well-written content on a daily basis.
Three best posts of 2009:
- 10 Link Building Tools for Tracking Inbound Links
- 25 link Building Tactics to Improve Blog Search Engine Rankings
- 26 Top Search Marketing Blogs ByRSS Subscribers
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26. User Effect
A personal favorite of mine. Dr. Pete has a rare ability to simmer down often-confusing issues on usability and the wider world of web marketing to straighforward language (and often a few helfpul and hilarious infographics). Dr. Pete is now blogging more often at SEOmoz.org – so posts at User Effect are becoming rare. Here’s hoping for more.
Three best posts of 2009:
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27. Yoast
Joost de Valk is one of those singular sources of tools and tips. He has developed some of the most widely-used WordPress plugins that improve the SEO of the platform. That’s only scratching the surface. Read this blog.





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Wow. This is an excellent round-up Mike! Looks like I have a few new blogs to add to my feed reader, including yours!
Here’s one of my favourites from 2009:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization
Thanks Darren. That post from Rand was definitely a good one.
Very nicely done. A few blogs I never read before, and will certainly put on the list. Thanks.
Slightly disappointed to see that Econsultancy didn’t make the grade. Maybe next year.
To be honest, Jake, I hadn’t come across your blog before – I’m certain there’s a lot of great content out there that I don’t know about.
Your blog looks interesting, though. This is a particularly interesting post to me: Forrester: Traditional agencies can’t do digital.
I’ll stay tuned.
Great round-up. I’ll review it at StumbleUpon and send it on to Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. I’d love to have your feedback on how I can improve my posts from your point of view.
I linked this comment to my Best of GrowMap post so you could easily get to it and see the content I believe is most important.
I really appreciate that. :)
I think you’re putting out solid content. Good advice. I think the delivery is where you can nail it.
And instead of trying my hand at explaining how I’ll share a phenomenal post from Copyblogger that does a way better job than I can: What a Bestselling Author Can Teach You About Hooking Your Readers.
Thanks Mike. I’ll read that specific post and see if I can improve delivery.
Delivery is 85% of it.
I still stink at it, but I believe saying something in fewer words often means saying it with more power.
I definitely agree that clearer and more concise is always better. Because I write for beginners and business owners who don’t have your background my posts are most likely always going to be longer and more detailed than optimum for you.
As the Social Media Manager at Adsmarket (an affiliate network), I spend A LOT of time reading blogs online, so your terrific list will certainly go in my favorites folder. I was glad to see some of the blogs I already read on your list too.
I will recommend this post to all of our account managers to share with our Advertisers and Publishers, knowing how powerful the advice from one internet marketer to another can be.
Thanks!