UPDATED: Why I Read Marketing Pilgrim

September 20, 2007 // Drew Stauffer

Every morning when I get to work I have roughly the same routine. I check all my various email accounts then I log into Newsgator to check out all my feeds.

Since my feeds are setup up alphabetically I see: A List Apart, Aaron Wall, Andy Beal and Andy Beard right at the top. I have 36 feeds that I try and keep up on, but if I don’t have a lot of time I always read Marketing Pilgrim, Andy Beard, Copyblogger, Top Rank, SEOmoz Search Engine Roundtable and SEL.

Marketing Pilgrim has quite a few new posts every morning, but not so much that it’s daunting to go through them all. Sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by blogs that have so many new posts. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough hours in the day to read them all.

I feel like Andy and his contributors do a very good job of keeping up with the news and they keep me in touch with the rest of the marketing community.

One of the biggest reasons that I’m a loyal MP reader is because Andy always responds. He is a huge name in the industry and even though I’m sure he’s swamped with a million tasks he takes the time. From experience I can say the same for Lee Odden and Rand Fishkin.

It’s nice to see that fame and fortune hasn’t gone straight to these guys’ heads. Ultimately that’s what keeps me interested and keeps me coming back for more.

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11 responses so far ↓

1 Andy Beal // Sep 20, 2007 at 5:31 pm

Thanks for the feedback and kind words.
2 Andy Beard // Sep 20, 2007 at 6:14 pm

Hi Drew

It is honestly a lot of work keeping up with the discussions, often taking more time than the blog posts, but I don’t think my blog would have developed the same way without it.

There is not a huge amount of fame or fortune for that matter yet. The hardest thing to manage is the responsibility. If I write something I really want it to contain enough information to be looked on as a valued opinion rather than echo chamber.
I have to write more words than other people might have to with more established audiences to compensate for being a relative newcomer.
In many ways it is easier to start a blog and not give opinion, just links to useful items.
3 Drew Stauffer // Sep 20, 2007 at 6:50 pm

@ Andy Beal
Anytime

@ Andy Beard
You always go above and beyond with your posts and it really shows how much you care about your profession.

You present excellent and detailed descriptions of everything and I have definitely come to trust your blog as a very important resource.

Keep up the good work guys!
4 Barry Schwartz // Sep 20, 2007 at 7:51 pm

Thank you for the feedback.

I always felt SEL was timely, but I know I now need to work harder to be more timely.

SER’s focus is less about breaking the news and more about getting the reaction from the community about news, releases, and changes found at the search engines.

Just gives me more of a reason to try harder.

Oh, blogging does not give me much fame or fortune.
5 Danny Sullivan // Sep 20, 2007 at 7:56 pm

Break my heart, Drew — first you say you don’t read our items because there are too many, then you tell me we’re often two days behind Andy?

He works hard; so do we, but nope — we’re not often two days behind what MP is covering. Read us regularly, and you’ll know that.

The reality is that MP and SEL cover different things. Andy had a broader focus on internet marketing. We’re search, search, search. You want to stay up with what’s happening in search news, I think we’re a must read source. You want to keep up on internet marketing, absolutely — Andy and team are great.

FYI, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the individual posts, take our SearchCap newsletter or feed: http://searchengineland.com/searchcap.php

One per day, skim the list, see everything we thought deserved a call-out or detailed coverage, plus a round-up from across the web.
6 Drew Stauffer // Sep 20, 2007 at 9:05 pm

@ Barry

Search Engine Roundtable and your posts on SEL are great. The feed for SER actually comes to my email so often times I read your posts before I even get to my feeds.

And yes I know that your posts on SER are different from MP. I enjoy how you let the community direct the flow.

You say there’s no fame, but (without sounding cheesy) you guys are the masters. I read your blogs because you teach me something new everyday and I can’t get enough.

Thanks soo much for everything you do. And thanks for taking a second to comment here! Just seeing the names on these comments is going to give me a great weekend.
7 Drew Stauffer // Sep 20, 2007 at 9:22 pm

@ Danny

Thanks for commenting Danny.

I didn’t mean to imply that SEL is anything but fantastic. I still do read you guys (at least a little) everyday. I might not be able to read all your posts but I do try. You guys do work very hard and it shows.

I subscribe to your newsletter and that does help out a lot. Thanks for offering that.

SEL is all about search that’s why I do read you guys. I guess I should have been more descriptive with “why” I like reading MP.

But at the end of the day, all you guys are on my list of feeds and blogs to read and the industry wouldn’t be the same with out you.
8 Barry Schwartz // Sep 20, 2007 at 10:21 pm

Thanks for your kind words Drew!

How about addressing “I can read an article on MP and then two days later it’s on Search Engine Roundtable or SEL.”

Although that may be true for SER, SEL covers topics pretty quickly. I would argue that SEL is not two days behind MP, even Andy would agree. SER might be. It totally depends on SEOs, if they find news to be interesting, we cover it that day… Sometimes, it takes a couple days for the news to be discussed fully in the forums and that is what SER reports on, the SEOs and SEMs take on news.

But sometimes we find gems in the forums that no other blog can find. Like Google and Yahoo updates before anyone else finds them. Some hidden product releases, like with Yahoo Site Block feature we reported today.

In regards to fame… Both Danny and I can easily walk down the street in a busy city and no one who recognize us. Heck, most people don’t recognize me even at an SES conference, at least people don’t stop me every minute, like they do to Danny. I guess fame is all relative… One day, I hope to be as popular as Britney Spears.
9 Drew Stauffer // Sep 21, 2007 at 2:59 am

You make a good point. I wasn’t meaning to say that SEL or SER is two days behind MP. It does depend a lot on the particular SEO who covers the topics.

One of the best things about the blogs is seeing the same story from different perspectives. It’s nice to get a different side of a story by people you respect in the industry.
10 Barry Schwartz // Sep 21, 2007 at 11:00 am

Ok, any chance you want to update the post to reflect that?
11 Drew Stauffer // Sep 26, 2007 at 12:47 am

Done