Don’t panic at the title, I’m not saying you need to read them all. But you’ll definitely want to subscribe to a few of these.
It can feel quite overwhelming to keep up with everything that's going on in the industry. Lately it seems that everyone is starting their own newsletter, and it is frankly impossible to read them all.
I’m here to help you choose the right set of newsletters that will keep you up to date on everything SEO and make you better at your job.
What should I subscribe to?
The right set of newsletters for you is totally going to depend on the specifics of your role. Most people only read 1 or 2.
Some people are just not into newsletters at all and prefer to stay informed through Twitter.
I recommend that you subscribe to a set of 5 and then remove the ones you’re not really invested in. Try different ones until you feel like you have a solid stack of newsletters that keeps you informed but not overwhelmed.
To start out, I recommend that you subscribe to:
One general SEO newsletter for new methodologies, how-to guides and inspirational content.
One to stay on top of SEO news.
One for your specific leg of SEO (links, local, international, technical or content)
One that helps you grow as a professional.
A generic marketing newsletter to keep you in touch with the rest of the marketing channels.
I’ve collated a list of my personal favourites along with recommendations of some awesome folks in the industry. I hope you’re ready for it.
The best SEO newsletters
The newsletters listed in this section cover most topics within SEO without specialising in any specific one. These include SEO news, guides and strategies, which makes it easy to discover new content and keep your finger on the pulse of the industry.
SEOFOMO
Author: Aleyda Solís
Frequency: Weekly on Sunday
If you only subscribe to one SEO newsletter, make sure it’s this one.
Aleyda’s newsletter is everything you need to stay informed in SEO. Every week she shares some official Google news, guides and articles by the best in the industry and some non-SEO articles that are still relevant for us.
Plus, if you’re not keen on newsletters, she always adds a list of SEOs to follow on Twitter that will keep you informed.
Rich Snippets
Author: Jamie Indigo at Traffic Think Tank
Frequency: Weekly on Thursday
Jamie's witty commentary makes this newsletter one of my favourite reads of the week. She covers the main developments in the industry, with a heavy technical lean. This is not just a list of links, but it's valuable on its own.
WTSNewsletter
Author: Areej AbuAli
Frequency: Monthly
This newsletter highlights the work that women in the SEO industry do every month. The Women in Tech SEO community is a spectacular initiative that is revolutionising the industry. Subscribing to the newsletter can be a small way to contribute to the cause and destroy your biases when it comes to women in tech.
Aggregator newsletters to keep up with SEO news
It is estimated that Google tweaks its algorithm 500-600 times every year. On top of that, SEOs all over the world are developing tools, methodologies and guides to help you get better at it. If it feels overwhelming it’s because it is.
Aggregator-style newsletters can help you catch your breath. These newsletters focus on highlighting industry news and the best resources created by the community.
The Moz Top 10
Author: Moz’s team
Frequency: Monthly
Moz’s newsletter provides a curated list of the 10 best articles that have been written in the SEO industry in the last month. 3 of those articles are dedicated to local SEO.
This newsletter is great if you want to keep an eye out for just the best of the best and find your news somewhere else. It might be less interesting to you if you’re not doing local SEO or you’re worried that there might be a bias towards their brand in their content.
Search News You Can Use
Author: Marie Haynes
Frequency: Weekly on Thursday
This is definitely an industry favourite. In her newsletter, Marie shares the latest algorithm updates along with some commentary, focusing on actionable tips.
Educational SEO newsletters
These newsletters focus on a specific topic in each edition and dive deeper into it. Rather than providing a set of links, these provide in-depth education or commentary on a specific topic in the world of marketing and SEO.
SEOForLunch
Author: Nick Leroy
Frequency: Weekly on Tuesday
SEOForLunch used to be a an agregation of SEO news and content with some commentary to help you digest it (pun intended), but recently Nick has re-vamped it and taken it to a whole new level. While it will still contain official Google updates, it now delves a little bit deeper into a specific topic, so it's a lot more opinionated. It also includes some of the most popular job posts from SEOjobs.
WTF is SEO?
Author: Jessie Willms & Shelby Blackley
Frequency: Weekly on Monday
This newsletter is focused on SEO for publishers. Every edition focuses on one main concept or strategy and it goes in depth with it.
This will be really interesting to you if editorial content is strategically important for your business (think SaaS and products with a long customer journey). I find their content really actionable and complete and it’s a read I enjoy a lot.
SEO Notebook
Author: Steve Toth
Frequency: Weekly on Thursday
Before writing this article I was not subscribed to it, but it’s been recommended a few times by other SEO professionals, so it had to make the list.
Steve will share one page of his SEO notebook every week with you. So the content can’t be found anywhere else! It aims to be actionable and strategic.
The SEO MBA
Author: Tom Critchlow
Frequency: 🤷♀️
This newsletter doesn’t focus on news, hacks or tools. This newsletter is for SEOs who want to better their strategy and their approach to getting results on search. I would not recommend it for beginners or as a learning resource, but if you’re already a solid SEO looking to hone your craft, this is for you.
Growth marketing for SEOs
Personally, as I go through my career, I've become more and more interested in growth strategies and loops. There are some excellent newsletters out there focused on strategies that allow you to scale up that are truly worth a read.
Growth Memo
Author: Kevin Indig
Frequency: Weekly on Mondays
Kevin Indig is an excellent communicator no matter the topic. In his weekly newsletter, he takes us through a helpful idea or concept for growth marketing.
This is easily my favourite growth marketing newsletter, since it manages to be both in-depth and highly actionable. It's always a grounding and inspiring read and all the previous issues are available online.
Subscribe to Gowth Memo
Marketing Examined
Author: Alex García
Frequency: Multiple times per week
I learnt about Alex's newsletter in early December 2022 and I was immediately sold. This newsletter comes into my inbox at unexpected intervals with random nuggets of wisdom. It's inspiring and low-key stressful.
It is similar to Growth Memo, but less in depth and more actionable. So pick your poison!
Subscribe to Marketing Examined
Data and analytics newsletters
Google Sheets Tips Weekly
Author: Ben Collins
Frequency: Weekly on Monday
Listen, I do 80% of my work on Google Sheets. Anything that will help me use it a tad more efficiently will have a huge impact on my productivity.
Subscribe to Google Sheets Tips Weekly
The Simmer
Author: Simo Ahava
Frequency: 🤷♀️
In this newsletter, Simo talks about what’s new in data analytics and tag management in a way that’s straightforward and easy to understand. Rather than curating content for you, he provides a digested version of it, along with some actionable tips.
The Marketing <> Analytics Intersect
Author: Avinash Kaushik
Frequency: Monthly
This newsletter is not for beginners, but rather for people who aim to hone their measurement strategies. Avinash shares cutting edge methodologies and inspiring thought leadership that will help you measure the impact of your marketing efforts.
Marketing newsletters for SEOs
SEO sits within the marketing department and that’s for a good reason. We don’t work to make our sites rank for the sake of ranking, but to fulfil a business goal.
However, SEO is on the more technical side of marketing, which often means we can lose touch with the wider marketing stack. These newsletters should help you stay up to date on industry news.
Geekout Newsletter
Author: Matt Navarra
Frequency: Weekly
This newsletter is very popular amongst marketers and it focuses primarily on social media. If this is somewhere you’d like to go in your career or you’re just looking to understand better where most of your department budget is going, look no further!
The Menu
Author: Amanda Natividad
Frequency: Weekly (most of the time)
If you’re on Twitter at all, you’ve seen some of Amanda’s threads around. Amanda is part of the team at SparkToro and she is a walking masterclass on audience-driven marketing strategies. On her newsletter she shares one strategy some links to interesting content and, since she is a trained chef, a recipe.
You could argue that Amanda's newsletter is not actually about growth strategies, but I think her ideas revolve around an audience-centric concept of sustainable scalability.
Subscribe to The Menu
Let's Talk Shop
Author: Luke McCarthy
Frequency: Monthly
The official king of ecommerce has a fabulous newsletter too. He often covers mistakes online shops make when it comes to CRO, SEO and content that are costing these businesses thousands.
He has a very practical approach to CRO and I genuinely find it very helpful to learn through case studies and methodologies.
Marketing Brew
Author: Minda Smiley, from Morning Brew
Frequency: Daily
Marketing Brew is the marketing spin-off of the super famous Morning Brew newsletter.
The main difference with TL;DR Marketing is the tone and the writing style, but the covered topics are very similar. If you’re torn between the two, give both a try and choose your favourite.
The Monthly Buzz
Author: Buzzsumo
Frequency: Monthly (duh)
Every month they talk about one specific issue (elections, the Oscars, anything relevant) from a content marketing and social media perspective. Using their own data, they tell a story about the content being created around that topic and the audience engagement and sentiment around it.
It’s a light, fun read and I personally really like it.
The official Google Trends newsletter
Author: Simon Rogers
Frequency: A few times a week
For the longest time I didn’t know this newsletter existed! Consider this the hidden gem in this article, if you must.
It’s a newsletter curated by the Google Trends team including interesting stats about new and trending searches, along with informative graphs and maps. It’s very US centric and not at all promoted.
If you want to sign up, you’ll have to fill out a Google Form and get accepted for it.
The Marginalised Marketer
Author: Azeem Ahmad (AKA Azeem Digital)
Frequency: Monthly
Azeem’s newsletter is very close to my heart. He uses his platform to promote the work of marketers from marginalised backgrounds such as women, POC or LGTB+.
There is a common argument against curating content based on the marginalised identity of the author. Some people argue that the curation should be based on the quality of the content. And it’s true, but not in the way they’d think.
There is an existing bias against authors with marginalised identity and extremely good content often gets passed on because the author is not male or white. And the entire industry is worse for it.
Initiatives like Azeem’s or Areej’s make the whole industry better, so go ahead and subscribe!
Digital PR newsletters
Now, is digital PR part of SEO? Brand and links are key factors in organic search. Digital PR is focused on gaining links for your website in relevant sites and enhancing your brand awareness, so it's definitely a yes from me.
The link building industry has evolved massively throughout the years and digital PR has consolidated as the best link building tactic, thanks to its roots in content marketing and traditional PR. If you want to learn how to build links while creating value, I recommend you keep tabs on this industry by subscribing to one of these newsletters.
The Weekly PR
Author: Bethanie Dennis
Frequency: Weekly on Tuesday
The PR team at Rise At Seven swear by this newsletter, so I had to include it. Bethanie shares examples of the best digital PR campaigns that have gone live that week along with PR tips you can apply in your job.
Work in PRogress
Author: Abigail Emily Bennetts
Frequency: Fortnightly
No, that’s not a typo in the title, it’s another strong recommendation from the Rise At Seven PR team.
In this newsletter, Abigail shares the best campaigns of the last two weeks, along with PR tips, speaking opportunities, an interview with a PR professional and a few articles. This is a very complete newsletter if your role is very PR or links-heavy.
The Grapevine
Author: Iona Townsley
Frequency: Monthly
I worked with Iona on the same accounts for over a year and my mind was constantly blown by her amazing campaign ideas. She undeniably has an eyer for what's going to do well and she puts it to good use in this newsletter.
On a monthly basis, Iona shares every digital PR campaign that has come out this month. Whether or not they have performed well, they will be shared on The Grapevine. This will help you understand the moves the industry is making and get inspiration for your own campaigns.
Newsletters that make you a better professional
Being good at your job is not just about your hard skills. Being able to negotiate a raise, be a good manager or communicate confidence will move your career forward much more than any hard SEO expertise will.
These newsletters help you work on skills that will supercharge your career.
The New Leader
Author: Paddy Moogan
Frequency: Weekly
Management is a big part of many SEO jobs. Whether you’re in-house or agency-side, you probably manage or will manage someone in your career.
Paddy's newsletter is a short 5-minute read that will help you be a better leader, regardless of your position.
Subscribe to The New Leader
The Wholehearted Manager
Author: Amalia Fowler
Frequency: Fortnightly
Management is very difficult and the old-school way simply do not work. Amalia gives you tips on how to manage with compassion, dealing with your reports in a holistic perspective that looks at both you and your team as people, not resources.
The SEO Freelancer
Author: Nick LeRoy
Frequency: Fortnightly
This newsletter is for you if you are an SEO freelancer or are planning to be one. From administrative tasks to getting new business or dealing with clients, this covers it all. It is quite American-centric, so it might not be a perfect fit for you if you’re not in the US.
Hopefully this article has brought some order into the newsletter chaos that’s out there. This is a live blog post and I will continue updating it with new newsletters as they are created (or when I find a new one).
Rest assured that this is my genuine opinion. None of these are affiliate links and no one has paid to feature in this list, but I might get some SEO merch if you subscribe through this blog post.
Did I miss an awesome newsletter? Let me know on Twitter!