26 Business Blogs You Should Be Reading Now

There is no shortage of blogs out there, but time IS short and you don’t want to waste your time reading stuff that isn’t going to benefit you. Here is a list of business blogs in no particular order that I think are worth the time and that may not be on your radar yet:

Are you working on selling a product that would like to see in stores, magazines and blogs and find out how to make a much bigger splash with it than you are currently getting? Then check out Launch Grow Joy and learn from the wisdom of someone who has done it already and teaches others to do it every day. Aside from the blog there is also a podcast and even if you aren’t on the exact course this blog is aimed at there is a ton of good general information and inspiring stories here to give you plenty of reasons to keep on stopping by.

If you are working as part of the freelance economy, or that is just one source of revenue for you, check out the Freelance Guerrilla blog. The best part about this blog is that it doesn’t just report exaggerated tales of success from unnamed sources but it provides real world stories about how to survive and thrive working for yourself providing skills and services to others as a freelancer. A service business is the fastest, lowest cost way to break into entrepreneurship and it can turn into serious money seriously fast if you do it right and do it smart. This is the blog to read if you are going down this path or even just considering it.

Although Blogtrepreneur sounds like it might be just for bloggers really the site is packed with all kinds of business advice that goes far and wide beyond just topics of interest to those running blogs. The founders Matthew and Adam Toren are brothers, serial entrepreneurs, investors, and mentors. For nearly 20 years, Matthew and Adam have provided instruction in management concepts, marketing, and finance to emerging and distressed small businesses. There are a ton of posts and the site has a huge backlog of information that is definitely worth checking out and checking in with on a regular basis.

Are you working on launching something right now? The check out the Epic Launch Blog– this one is filled with inspiration as well as practical advice for all aspects of launching a new business that has all the right ingredients for success. There are tons of posts and many of them really dig deep to cover all sides of a question. Poke around and read the articles that apply (they’ve got posts going back to 2009!) and see what else you can learn. Chances are if you have a question about business you’ll find an answer here.

I love travel and I love being an entrepreneur but I really haven’t done them together- and certainly not the way The Suitcase Entrepreneur is doing it! Natalie has been traveling the world working from wherever she finds herself without the usual constraints of an office, staff or regular work hours! If you are looking for a how to guide on being location independent, or just want to learn more about structuring something that could offer you that option down the road, then learn it from someone who has already done it!

If you want an informative all around blog with an interesting voice check out Small-Bizsense. Run by Kim “The Chick Geek”, Small Business Sense shares small business ideas, tips and resources for independent Entrepreneurs and Small Business owners. I like their monthly roundup posts that often point to great posts I wouldn’t have otherwise seen and there are lots of list posts in between covering everything from productivity tips to top five business podcasts.

How about this for an inspiring title: Eventual Millionaire! Maybe you are already there, but either way, you are going to learn a ton from the successful entrepreneur interviews website owner Jaime Tardy posts for your education. The interviewees are successful entrepreneurs who are sharing their ups and downs and secrets to success in their time with Jaime. She also has her own inspiring story about getting out of debt and quitting a job she hated to move on to do something she loves. It is a great site to visit for a regular dose of knowledge and inspiration!

If you are working in a small town or a rural area then there is a blog just for you! It’s called Small Biz Survival and it focuses on the unique challenges facing business owners who live where the populations are small and the access to many resources other might t ake for granted are not available or hard to come by. The good news is that small towns have their own unique advantages and you can be successful if you can apply the right way of thinking to the situation you are facing. Of course, many of these lessons will apply to any small business and so I would make the stop here to check out the articles no matter your geographic location as what you find will very likely be a gem you can use!

If you are thinking about joining the ranks of the work from home crowd then check out the posts at SparkPlugging. This site is all about the work at home entrepreneur and the specific business issues, ideas and inspirations they deal with. Theses days with so much of the work world accessible online almost every business owner is at least a partial work from home entrepreneur anyway so there is going to be something here for just about everyone.

If you are going more of the VC route with your startup then check out Startup Professionals Musings. This blog focuses on finding business ideas, mentors, raising capital and networking. The posts are long and deep and go into tons of detail. They are written by Martin Zwilling, CEO & Founder of Startup Professionals, Inc.; Advisory Board Member for multiple startups; ATIF Angels Selection Committee; Entrepreneur in Residence at ASU and Thunderbird School of Global Management. I am amazed that he posts as often as he does for as much as he writes but that is just another reason to make this a frequent stop on your reading list.

The Secrets of Entrepeneurship offers a general overview of the world of small business and offers lots of practical hands on tips to make the new owner or aspiring entrepreneur more business savvy. They post regularly and cover a wide range of topics.

The Right Stripes is a website for women launching startups. A quick review of their posts though pretty quickly demonstrate these are topics any entrepreneur is going to benefit from reading. They post regularly and cover a wide variety of topics and although some do address issues specific to women I wouldn’t let that stop anyone from making it a regular stop on your blog reading tour.

The 500b is a another general business website featuring entreprenuer success stories and general business how to lessons. In their words “The 500B is a resource for entrepreneurs with tips, business insights, how to’s and more.” Although the posting isn’t super frequent the quality of the posts is top notch.

TreplifeDad is a business blog for “parent entrepreneurs” featuring general business and entrepeneur articles to helps with all aspects of business building and with a special emphasis on the challenges faced by parents who are also business owners. As the father of two kids myself, I get it. Gone are the days of it being all about me and what I want to accomplish- I’ve got a balancing act to do now- and I love it!

For a blog on marketing help you should check out Ginger Bread. Although there are some more general articles most of the content centers around online marketing help for business owners- things like SEO, email marketing, content marketing and using social media effectively. These are all topics no business owner in any industry can ignore these days and the posts are both regular and actionable so definitely worth a browse through.

If you have an online store or are thinking about starting one or adding one then look no further than the memorably named My Wife Quit Her Job. This blog offers practical behind the curtain information on what works and what doesn’t in e-commerce based on real life examples taken from their own store. The website also offers tons of free lessons as well as paid options for training for those who want to dig deeper. If you are hoping to quit your job and open an online store, you need to reading this!

Head over to SmallBizDaily for a great collection of all kinds of business articles. The posts run the gamut from management help to business trends and everything in between. The site is updated constantly and the posts make great quick reads from a variety of area experts. The site is run by Rieva Lesonsky who, prior to co-founding GrowBiz Media in 2008, was SVP/Editorial Director of Entrepreneur Magazine. I use to see her name and read her column there all the time back when I was just an entrepreneurial sprout myself.

The Grasshopper Blog is put out by the people who provide the phone service and is owned by the company Citrix which makes all kinds of cool software most of us use but may not realize. The articles on their blog are often interesting and they post a few times a week about general business topics. Although they are doing it as a service to draw traffic to their core business they are nevertheless putting out quality content I would suggest dropping in your news feed or bookmarking for regular check ins to see what they have been posting lately.

If you are looking for ideas on creating your mission, your company vision or your general business goals, check out The Thriving Small Business Blog by Patricia Lotich, the founder of TSB.  Patricia is an MBA and a Certified Manager of Quality and Organizational Excellence through the American Society for Quality which facilitates the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. She writes the articles on the blog and they are gold if you are looking for help in focusing and building your business’ organization and direction. She also offers consulting if you want to get one on one help or really have someone to help you with your road map and hold you accountable for your success.

Are you thinking about a franchise or do you already own one? Check out the Franchise King’s blog for tons of great tips. Even if you don’t own a franchise if you are thinking about getting into a business where franchises will be your competitors then you should check out what they are doing and gather as much information as you can. If you are going into business using this model then you definitely want to go in with your eyes open as the are as many downsides as there are upsides to franchise ownership and you don’t want to land on on the wrong side. There is also plenty of good advice that applies to business owners in general and people planning to buy a non franchise business. Business is business and everyone can learn something from the king!

Unless you plan to be solo forever (which is an option, but a limiting one in many ways) you are going to need to hire someone. That is no easy task and the cost of bad hires is significant. Before you go down that road check out the Growth Everywhere blog. The website focuses on smart hiring from the entrepreneur and growing a business perspective (as opposed the the HR perspective) and helps you figure out how to do it right from the start. They aren’t just about hiring though- Growth Everywhere is a blog on business and personal growth. On Mondays we interview world-class entrepreneurs and pull out actionable insights to help you grow. Check it out and listen to the podcast as well.

There is no business today of any size that doesn’t use some technology. The smarter you use it the more efficient you can be and the more easily you can compete and win in your field. Therefore, it makes sense that you should be reading the SmallBizTechnology blog. These guys are focused on regular business owners and how they can make the best use of technology to leverage their time and talents to the greatest advantage. Like they say on their website: “Smallbiztechnology.com writes about technology solutions that increase efficiency, saves money or increases the revenue of a small business. This is what makes us excited. Period.” I am a big believer is using technology to make life easier and I love being able to show clients how we can do things way easier than they are used to or than the last person was doing it. It’s an easy win for us and it makes the client’s life easier so everyone is happy.

You can’t put entrepreneurs in a box but you can certainly read the Entrepreneurs in a Box blog! This blog is about, in their words “This blog is for people interested in starting a new business, or interested in increasing performances of current business, or interested in increasing business potential energy of their business…” And what is “business potential energy”? A term the blog owner has coined based on his own research and experience- pretty cool! This site is updated often and is definitely worth a visit for all kinds of interesting posts on a range of business topics.

Looking for a collection of business articles by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs? Stop by Success Harbor and take a look a their collection of posts that will give you all kinds of insights and actionable tips you can use to help grow and improve your enterprise. The website is run by George Meszarozs, who I’ve actually met before at one of his Trustegrity networking events. He is the CEO of Webene, a web design and marketing firm. He has interviewed over 150 entrepreneurs and writes about a lot of different topics for entrepreneurs from how to start a business to strategy, branding, marketing, startups, and web design and development. Nice job on the website, George!

If blogging is your thing, or if like me having a blog is just part of your overall business marketing strategy then check out Shade of Info by Andrew Warner. He writes about building your audience, increasing conversions, targeting the right reader and everything else you need to know to have a highly successful blog. Of course, virtually all of these same principles apply to marketing in general- know your audience, build your client base, target your ideal customer, etc. So I would say this is going to make good reading for a whole lot of people who could put the ideas to work in their own businesses.

What is the Frugal Entrepreneur? In the words of the owner, “I decided that I wanted to create a place where other frugal entrepreneurs and small business owners could find the small business tips, tools, and resources they need to help them run their businesses.” You will also finds lots of good general business articles and resources in addition to all the free document templates that were the original inspiration for the site. The reality is most new business owners are watching every dollar and can’t afford to spend frivolously, a fact which this website appreciates and works to remedy.