"Inbound Marketing" by Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah

"Inbound Marketing: Get Found using Google, Social Media, and Blogs"
by Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah

This book is really useful if you know nothing about marketing, and most likely useful if you know a lot about traditional marketing.  Despite a cohort of class mates which work for Boston Marketing Firms, I know nothing about Marketing. As such this was a very informative read for me.  This book has great advice about how to get the word out about the work that you are doing.  Tons of great information about creating content, using the content to get found and ranked, and then converting visitors of that content into users/buyers.

The book talks about getting the basics set up; analytic, and analysis tools.  It talks about the mechanics and infrastructure required to have an effective blog.  Additionally it speaks to the timing of when you would want to start blogging about a product or service.  Combine the information in Inbound Marketing with the suggestions found on thetrafficblogger.com and you will quickly build a great community around your game.

One critical tool recommend in the book, that I really want to remember, is blog.grader.com.  Sure they grade the blog and measure your SEO... which is not that important to a new blogger.  But more importantly for new bloggers they offer a list of tools that should be on each website.  As a side note check out the rest of Hubspot's tools and services as well.  They have some neat information there about blogging and entrepreneurship.

Even if you think you know about getting your message out there, reading Inbound Marketing will make you realize ways to leverage that communication a little better.  It will fill in the reasons why taking steps to communicate through multiple channels simultaneously makes sense.  And the book also provides quick recaps which basically function as checklists.  These are helpful to make sure that you have not missed a critical step.

This book did not teach everything about marketing and blogging.  It did teach me the kinds of things that I needed to look at.  It showed me the areas that needed more practice.  "Inbound Marketing" acted as a jumping off point for a whole lot more.