I know many companies that want to engage in search or online marketing for the first time and also those that want to step it up a notch are always on the lookout for better resources. You can spend a lot of time lurking in forums, reading blogs and information sites, reading books, attending conferences and networking and still not be sure of what to do next or what’s right for you. There are a few resources that I’ve found to be consistently effective and high quality that I’ll mention here. This is by no means a comprehensive list – it really represents the resources I find myself using often and/or recently:
Marketing Experiments – Web Clinics
- Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2005-2006: SEO & PPC Tactics & Results Data
- Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006: 310 Charts & Eyetracking Heatmaps
- Landing Page Handbook: How to Raise Conversions
Books
- Winning Results with Google AdWords – Andrew Goodman
- The Virtual Handshake – David Teten & Scott Allen
- The Search Engine Marketing Kit – Dan Thies
- Call to Action – Brian & Jeffrey Eisenberg
- The Search – John Battelle
- Google Power: Unleash the Full Potential of Google – Chris Sherman
Blogs
- Official Google Blog
- Official Yahoo Search Blog
- Official MSN Weblog
- Official Ask Jeeves Blog
- Matt Cutts
- SEOBook
- Stuntdubl
- SEOMoz
- InsideGoogle
- Search Brains – Aggregates Search Engine Blogs
Forums
- WebmasterWorld
- DigitalPoint
- InstantPosition
- SEOChat
- SearchEngineWatch
- High Rankings
These resources provide a variety of search marketing information and the more information you have the better prepared you’ll be to engage in search marketing.