Top 100 U.S. Social Media, Internet Marketing & SEO Blogs – 2012

Once again, Cision is pleased to present our Top 100 U.S. Social Media, Internet Marketing and SEO blogs.With this year’s list we’ve considered only US-based blogs, which has allowed us to shine a spotlight on some blogs that did not make previous lists. In addition, many industry heavy-weights have moved down, making way for new voices and fresh perspectives. Nearly half of the titles are first-timers.

To compile the list, we chose four Web audience metrics from Compete.com: Average Unique Visitors per Month (available in CisionPoint), Average Page Views per Month per Unique Visitor, Average Time (seconds) per Month per Unique Visitor, and Average Visits per Month per Unique Visitor. Using Cision’s media database, we were able to find over 400 blogs covering social media, online marketing and SEO. From there, we winnowed it down to US-based blogs that primarily focus on these topics. Finally, we ranked the blogs based on the four Compete metrics. Tied scores were broken by UVPM.

As an added bonus (and as part of our on-going campaign to list social profiles for media outlets and contacts in CisionPoint) we’ve taken special care to seek out the Twitter Handles, as well as Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn pages affiliated with these prestigious blogs. We’ve also noted the movement in rankings compared to last year. Without further ado, here are the results.

Disclaimer: a question we’ve addressed often on this blog and in many of our free  Cision Webinars, with all the metrics available for determining influence on the social Web, how can you determine which blogs really matter? Unfortunately there isn’t one metric that serves as a reliable indicator. As Jay noted in his original list, influence is subjective by nature and we’ve read a lot of great posts by bloggers who didn’t make the list. Some of them wield more influence in social media education endeavors outside of their blogs, such as conferences, Webinars, podcasts and white papers.

UPDATE 4/17/11: Our original analysis accidentally overlooked 1 top 100 blog, which has since been added to the list below. It was an accidental oversight on our part, and our apologies go out to Olivier Blanchard… an amazing blogger who should have been on the original list.


Rank     Blog     Rank Change
1     SEOmoz Blog     +4
2     HubSpot Internet Marketing Blog     +5
3     ClickNewz!     -
4      Vertical Measures     +22
5     ShoeMoney     -
6     Search Engine Roundtable     -
7     ignite social media     5-
8     SEO Book.com     +3
9     Fresh Ideas from BurrellesLuce     -
10     Digital Marketing Blog     -
11     Search Engine Land     -7
12      Social Media Examiner     -11
13     Find and Convert     -3
14     Outspoken Media     +2
15     Social Media Today     +2
16     Seth Godin’s Blog     -2
17     SEO News Blog     -
18     Mannix Marketing Blog     +78
19     MarketingProfs Daily Fix     -
20     Online Marketing Blog     +3
21     Social Commerce Today     -
22     Social Fresh     -
23     Mari Smith     -
24     aimClear Blog     +13
25     ReveNews     -4
26     How to Change the World     -
27     Pixels & Pills     -
28     Conversation Marketing     -6
29     BlitzLocal Blog     -
30     SocialMouths     +18
31     Search Engine Journal     -
32     Bruce Clay Blog     +3
33     Kikolani.com     -6
34     Fathom Blog     -22
35     We Are the Voce Nation      -
36     Search Engine Optimization Journal     -
37     ChrisBrogan.com     -24
38     All Facebook     -18
39     Zac Johnson     -24
40     Socialbrite     -
41     John Haydon     -
42     Social@Ogilvy     -24
43     Amplify Interactive SEM Blog     +42
44     Local SEO Guide     -38
45     Brian Solis     -4
46     Simply Stated Business     -
47     Social Media Explorer     -2
48     Capture the Conversation     +45
49     Convince & Convert     -16
50     Graywolf’s SEO Blog     -31
51     Seo by the Sea     -
52     The RKG Blog     +15
53     eZanga Blog     -
54     Matt Cutts     -16
55     Peter Shankman     -12
56     Dealer Refresh     -
57     The Altimeter Blog     -17
58     ShopTalk: Social Media     -
59     Matt Bacak On Internet Marketing & Life     -10
60     Beth’s Blog     +18
61     SocialWayne.com     -
62     VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business     -
63     PR Conversations     -
64     Being Peter Kim     +30
65     Orthopedic Social Media     -
66     Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang     -
67     Spin Sucks     -
68      SocialText Blog     +9
69     Palmer Web Marketing Blog     -
70     Anil Dash’s Blog     +28
71     Personal Branding Blog     -
72     Social Media B2B     -
73     MackCollier.com     -12
74     Conversation Agent     +5
75     Marketing Conversation     -
76     Inside Facebook     -47
77     The Marketing Technology Blog     -
78     PR Squared     -20
79     Small Business Search Marketing     -43
80     Waxing Unlyrical     -
81     Pulse 2     -
82     Successful Blog     -30
83     Breakaway Communications     -
84     John Battelle’s Searchblog     -
85     NetwitsThinkTank.com     -
86     Social Barrel     -
87     Flack’s Revenge     -
88     Scobleizer     -32
89     Fashionably Marketing.Me     -
90     CK’s Blog     -
91     Flyte Blog     -
92     The BrandBuilder Blog     -
93     Logic + Emotion     -21
94     Spark Minute     -
95     New Comm Biz     -
96     SEO Chicks     -65
97     SEO Smarty     -19
98     The Proactive Report     +4
99     Lost Remote     -
100      Supercool Creative     -3
101      .edu Guru     -