Top 20 Small Business Bloggers Dominating the Market

If you own a small business you should be blogging. No excuses. It makes sense for every industry. You do have time. I can overcome any excuse you send my way.

If you could offer your customers useful and helpful information and expertise about your industry, wouldn’t you? Blogging is just the tool you need to inform readers and convert potential customers into sales.

Here’s a list of top 20 small business bloggers and sites worth checking out. Take some cues from these experts to ramp up your blogging efforts.

1. MARK SUSTER (Both Sides of the Table)

Mark Suster - Both Sides of the Table
The face behind the prominent business blog Both Sides of the Table is Mark Suster, a two-time entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. He joined Upfront Ventures in 2007 as a general partner after selling his company to salesforce.com.

On his blog, he gives valuable insights on practical issues for start ups. In a blog posted in March he tackled the challenge of how to be persistent when faced with rejection.

He writes, “One of the hardest things for most entrepreneurs to know is how hard to push in situations where people tell you 'no'”. which was in his blog post titled, One of my Most Frequent Pieces of Advice: Be Politely Persistent. 

2. Penelope Trunk (Brazen Careerist)

Penelope Trunk - Brazen Careerist

Penelope Trunk founded four startups. Her most recent is Quistic, which provides online courses to help you manage your career.

In her blog penelopetrunk.com, she documents the twists and turns of her own career. She makes insightful comments about start-up life such as, “But the thing is, in a startup, everything moves at warp speed, even a nervous breakdown. So I recovered fast, convinced investors to put in more money. And we kept going”.

3. Steve Blank

Steve Blank

If you haven’t heard of Steve Blank, you can look for him on Forbes’ list of the 30 Most Influential People in Tech of 2013. His resume is impressive: 21 years in eight high technology companies. He’s also a professor at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University, Columbia University, Caltech, and UCSF and o-founder of E.piphany, which he founded in his living room in 1996.

The list goes on and on, but more importantly, be sure to check out his blog, which offers great start up tools

4. Jackie Huba

Jackie Huba

Jackie Huba is considered one of the 10 most influential online marketers. As co-author of the award-winning Church of the Customer blog, her business sense reaches more than 105,000 readers daily. As one of the most popular business blogs in the world, her work has frequently been featured in the media, such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Advertising Age.

She offers commentary about the “influence of frontline employees and why it’s important to have happy engaged employees as ambassadors for the company” in her recent blog post, Who do people trust? Peers and regular employees over the CEO, January 28, 2014.

5. Wise Bread (Personal Finance & Frugal Living) 

Wise Bread

Founded in 2006 by Lynn Truong, Will Chen, and Greg Go, Wise Bread is a personal finance blog focused on helping consumers make savvy purchasing decisions. With over 2.25 million page views a month, Wise Bread is the second largest personal finance blog in the United States, ranked behind only the Consumerist.

In a recent blog post on Apr 10, 2014, 8 Smart Ways to Save Money as a Small Business, Wise Bread gives advice about saving money wherever you can when you are running your ?business on a shoestring budget?. 

6. AllBusiness.com

allbusiness.com

As a leading online resource for businesses, AllBusiness.com provides expert advice on starting, financing, marketing, & managing your business.

In a recent blog post on April 8, 2014, AllBusiness bloggers gave small businesses a boost in the blog post, 10 Invaluable Tools for Running a Small Business

7. Guy Kawasaki (How to Change the World)

Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva, an online graphic design tool.

Formerly, he was an advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google and chief evangelist of Apple.

In an older post, Kawasaki explains, Why You Should Look at Your Company as a "Small Business".

8. Entrepreneur Daily Dose (Entrepreneur Magazine) 

Matthew Toren

Entrepreneur Magazine is a national business publication based in Irvine, California. For nearly 30 years,

Entrepreneur has been the ultimate guide to all the assorted challenges of business ownership. With the online blog you can find answers to practically any small business related question, from start ups to marketing to franchising.

You can find inspiring and informative blog posts such as 10 Simple Things Productive People Do Better (But So Can You) by Matthew Toren. 

9. Fred Wilson (A VC) 

Fred Wilson

Fred Wilson wears many hats. A New York City-based venture capitalist, blogger, and music lover, he’s been writing every day on his blog since September 2003. Currently he is co-founder of Union Square Ventures, a New York City-based venture capital firm.

Check out blog posts such as Twitter is Not Dying. It’s on the Cusp of Getting Much Bigger

10. Becky McCray (Small Biz Survival)

Becky McCray

This rural and small town business resource makes our top 20 list. Founded by Becky McCray, small businesses can find how-to articles that have an emphasis on social media marketing.

The 3 elements to get from “Ah-ha Moment” to “Business Success”
highlights “the idea, the opportunity, and the vision” that need to be part of a business owner’s effort as he or she explores business ownership. Realizing that these three elements can happen almost instantaneously or be part of a long, drawn-out process is important.” 

11. Mark Cuban (Blog Maverick)

Mark Cuban - Blog Maverick

Mark Cuban is never shy with words, whether in his book How to Win at the Sport of Business, on the popular television show he co-hosts, Shark Tank, or with his business blog, Blog Maverick.

He offers more than two cents when it comes to business advice. Check out a recent blog post, My 2 Cents on Sports Marketing and What I Learned From SMU Basketball This Week

12. Neil Patel (QuickSprout) 

Neil Patel - QuickSprout

Neil Patel helps small businesses navigate the tricky world of SEO and content marketing. Small businesses often manage their own social media campaigns and Patel says in his recent blog post, The Surprising Words That Get Content Shared on Social Media, “If you want more Facebook traffic, then using words like “when,” “tell us,” “submit,” “deals,” and “discounts” can help you get more shares, likes, and traffic to your site.”

13. Kevin Kelly's Lifestream

Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired Magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog. He has also been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture.

His blog has interesting perspectives and dynamic angles. In a post titled Personal Shadow Outsourcing, he writes, “For years I've heard apocryphal stories of knowledge workers in Silicon Valley who outsourced their job themselves. They had permission to work at home, but in fact outsourced their work to cheap Chinese or Indian labor. The Valley worker would work only a few hours per day overseeing his help, and goof off the rest. The Asian workers under him were delighted with a real job that paid well for them, but receiving only a fraction of what the CA guy got. And the CA guy's boss was delighted with the great work he was getting. It was an ingenious racket! Win, win, win, for three sides; everybody happy. But all this shadow outsourcing was only rumors as far as I could tell.

14. Copyblogger

Copyblogger

Any given day you can do a Google search for content marketing and Copyblogger is right there!

I enjoyed a recent post by Henneke, How to Turn Bland Text into Sparkling Online Content on March 25. “It may seem difficult to write content that’s engaging and seductive. But it really doesn’t need to be so hard.” 

15. The Scott Adams Blog (Dilbert.com)

Scott Adams

Scott Adams is the American creator of the Dilbert comic strip which depicts white-collar workers in modern corporations and other large enterprises.

On April 24, he wrote, “Do you remember my blog post about building a giant canal system in the U.S. as a way to create jobs in our robot-driven future? It was officially the worst idea I've ever had, according to most of you. Technically, it was just the worst idea I've ever shared. You wouldn't believe the crap that swirls around inside my skull and never gets out. But that's another story.” 

16. Small Business Trends

Small Business Trends

Small Business Trends blog is a beneficial source for news, resources, and advice. This is a fan favorite and you can check out recent blog posts such as Outsourcing Your Networking: Pros and Cons

17. Duct Tape Marketing

Duct Tape Marketing

?Duct Tape Marketing All small businesses need marketing and this is a great resource for expert marketing bloggers. Check out 4 Ways Creativity Can Help Generate Online Sales 

18. Jeff Cornwall (The Entrepreneurial Mind)

Dr. Jeff Cornwall - The Entrepreneurial Mind

Jeff Cornwall caught the entrepreneurial bug early in life. He has authored or co-authored nine books: Organizational Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Financial Management (now in 3rd edition), The Entrepreneurial Educator, From the Ground Up: Entrepreneurial School Leadership, Brining Your Business to Life, Bootstrapping, Entrepreneurship and the Modern University, Effective Small Business Management (now in 11th edition), and Essentials of Entrepreneurship (will be joining as co-author for the 8th edition forthcoming in 2015). 

19. Venture Hacks

Venture Hacks

When looking for straightforward and honest info about small business, Venture Hacks will keep you informed and motivated. In a recent blog post, We Don’t Pay You to Work Here, you can read a blog post about motivation, “We are motivated to perform when our work expresses who we are…” 

20. Seth Godin's Blog

Seth Godin

Quite possibly the king of bloggers is Seth Godin. American author, entrepreneur, marketer, and public speaker, Godin inspires millions of online followers! I loved Godin’s most recent blog post "I didn't have time." TRANSLATION: This actually means, "It wasn't important enough." It wasn't a high priority, fun, distracting, profitable, or urgent enough to make it to the top of the list.” You’ve gotta love this level of honesty in business. 

Successful entrepreneurs recognize that blogging plays an increasing role in dominating their market along with YouTube and social media. Some do it better than others, but the fact remains that if they are indeed successful, you can bet they have a blog. I hope you enjoyed this awesome list of top bloggers!

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Matthew Toren
 

Matthew Toren is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, investor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He is co-author, with his brother Adam, of Kidpreneurs.org, BizWarriors.com and Small Business, BIG Vision: Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right (Wiley).