After spending a couple of decades in marketing you start to realize that learning is a lifetime pursuit. What you know today will quickly be superseded by new information, tactics, and tools. While paid search advertising has been around for almost twenty years, it continues to evolve. Here is a list of sites that I use to keep up-to-speed on the latest developments across paid search advertising. These sites regularly post great content about paid search whether it’s commentary on the latest AdWords update, an interesting take on a new bidding strategy, or fresh data from industry reports.
Search Engine Land (SearchEngineland.com)
Search Engine Land is a top-tier publication and as such publishes several pieces of fresh content daily on an array of search-related topics, including—you guessed it—PPC. For the latest PPC content be sure to check under the SEM tab on their homepage. Some recent articles include coverage on Google’s rollout of AdWords account-level call extensions, a write-up on free AdWords testing tools, and a close look at how to improve your ad copy.
Search Engine Watch (SearchEngineWatch.com)
This site covers a number of digital marketing topics including a great section on PPC. One of my favorite regular posts they publish is their “Five most interesting search marketing news stories of the week.” With a ten-minute read, I can get caught up with the latest happenings in the search world. Articles you’ll find on Search Engine Watch vary in scope from actionable tips that you can put to use right away like this one on how ubiquitous and seamless voice search is becoming to detailed breakdowns on basic topics like What exactly is PPC keyword management anyway.
PPC: The Pay Per Click Blog (PPC.org)
Run by the agency Adogy, PPC.org is a great source for information on all things paid search. And when I say all things, I mean all things. Their content tends to stray away from pure paid campaigns and into the realms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Marketing, and Social Media. Still, it remains a great source for content more related to its namesake as well. You can even drill into topics like Google Adwords, Bing Ads and more with their topic menu at the top of the site.
Neptune Moon (NeptuneMoon.net)
Julie F. Bacchini is the driving force behind NeptuneMoon, both the prolific blog and the PPC agency of the same name. Julie, a top 25 influential PPC expert as named by PPC Hero, has been publishing quality paid search content since 2009. It’s always great to read the tips, tricks, and insights from someone who is really in the trenches with managing a myriad of paid search accounts.
Inbound (Inbound.org)
Inbound.org is a marketing community site powered by over 170,000 members. Topics covered there include everything having to do with digital marketing, but there is a fair amount of PPC-specific content. The posts you will find here are aggregated from blogs across the internet. This makes it a great one-stop-shop to get a good variety of PPC information. The search bar at the top of the site does a great job filtering on “PPC” or “Paid Search.” I would start there and check out any articles that grab your attention. If you find some content you particularly like, it might be a good idea to subscribe to the original blog where the content was first published. In this way Inbound.org works as a great content discovery engine.
Reddit Pay Per Click Subreddit
Reddit is a community site more well known for its cat memes and subreddits dedicated to everything from world news to PC Gaming. There really is a subreddit for everything on Reddit and PPC is no different. The PPC subreddit gets a decent amount of traffic with over 10,000 members. The discussion board format provides a great opportunity to directly engage with others in the PPC field. You can ask questions and get insider tips from PPC pros. Also worth checking out is the AdWords subreddit.
GrowthHackers (GrowthHackers.com/posts)
This site is my not-so-secret weapon. While GrowthHackers is pretty popular, I am still surprised how many people actually don’t know about it. This site is very similar to Inbound.org in that it is an aggregation of blog posts on marketing from many different sources.
What I like most about this site is that the information I find there is very tactical. I know that most of the time I can put some of what I am reading into action right away. Another great aspect is that the contributors here really do display some unique ways of thinking about common marketing challenges. Like every blog post aggregation site, the search bar is going to be your best friend. Don’t forget to look up “PPC” and “Paid Search” to get a good selection of articles.
Hanapin Marketing (HanapinMarketing.com)
Hanapin Marketing, producers of the annual PPC Hero Conference, know a thing or two about paid search. Lucky for all of us, they are happy to share it with the world. They feature some of the best content on paid search including annual industry reports, insider tips and tricks, and much more. Like many agency blogs, there will be a bit of promotional content touting their agency services as well. However, the quality and value of the informative pieces they publish make it worth your time.
Go Forth and Conquer
Whew! That is a lot of information. Personally I like to carve out some time on Friday mornings to read through this content over the course of an hour or so. I find that amount of time sufficient to check the latest developments in PPC and pick up enough tricks to keep improving outcomes in my campaigns. As always, you can check out the BrandVerity blog for more paid search information, or better yet, subscribe to our blog. We also tweet many of the great articles we find online, so feel free to follow us on Twitter.
Know a great site for paid search insights? Please share it with us.
