Whether you're just getting started with inbound marketing or you've been working at it for a while, the Internet has made it easy to find the inbound marketing help you need in order to meet your marketing campaign objectives.
There's a lot of advice out there about what you need to be doing in order to get more leads, increase engagement, increase sales and ultimately revenue. And it's not easy to find a starting point to start collecting information about which marketing activities will work best for your company and your company's marketing objectives, but with the right resources you can just jump in and get learning. Here are some credible trusted online marketing resources where you can get creative ideas for marketing tactics that generate more leads.
Keyword Tool
This service can generate multiple long-tail keywords on almost any subject imaginable, winning you back the time it would take to think them up on your own. The free version will give you enough keywords to get started, and the paid version includes useful features like sorting by search volume so you can focus on keywords with enough traffic to be worthwhile. Remember to consider each keyword from the perspective of your buyer persona; if you can't explain why a customer would find a given keyword important, you probably shouldn't bother trying to rank for it. The reverse also holds true. If a keyword is obviously valuable to customers, then go for it.
The Official Google Blog
Speaking of SEO, there's no better way to stay up to date about changes to Google's SEO algorithm than by following the Google blog. While Google isn't the only search engine out there, it's certainly the one that dominates the market. Make sure you know about updates on how Google calculates rankings, especially ones where you can be penalized for not adapting. Being aware of changes and being compliant are important to your Google ranking health.
Inbound.org
With over 150,000 members, inbound.org is the largest online marketing community. Let's face it, marketing on your own can get pretty lonely and boring, but more importantly chatting with other marketers can help you stay on top of marketing best practices and hear about new ideas when they first come up in the community. This site is a source for news, tips, even job opportunities and future hires. It might be counterintuitive to have competing marketers or inbound marketing agencies share information, but it's widely accepted that there's enough marketing work out there for everyone, so there's a shared interest to network, exchange information, and improve marketing overall.
HubSpot.com
HubSpot is one of the biggest names in inbound marketing. Their software is the answer for a lot of businesses that want to run their marketing using a platform that integrates the components of inbound, and provides killer reporting on marketing activities. While the software might not be the right answer for all businesses, Hubspot shares a ton of information about inbound marketing best practices, how to's, inbound marketing processes, and more. Whether you're in sales or marketing, they have a blog that's right for you.
Marketo.com
Marketo is another major inbound marketing organization and, like HubSpot, they have valuable insights to share. You'll want to keep up with both of them regardless of which service you actually use, if either. The two sites have slightly different views on marketing activities, and exposing yourself to more than one source is the best way to avoid gaps or biases in your learning.
The Marketing Automation and Content Marketing sections of the Marketo blog have the most useful information for companies who are new to managing their marketing campaigns. That's not to dismiss the other sections of their blog, as the Social Media and Email Marketing sections also offer great information for those particular marketing activities.
Digital Marketing Institute
Sure, there are a lot of blogs and articles out there, but if you're the kind of person who wants to learn in a more structured way, the Digital Marketing Institute might be for you. This organization offers marketing courses as a part of marketing certification programs in Digital Marketing and Digital Selling. The more structured nature of the program means there's a cost for the courses, but if you value learning from others in a more interactive way than just reading articles online, it might just be worth making the investment.
