I’ve been building websites for the past 10 years. Recently, someone asked me how I keep up with the latest trends and technology — especially since it’s a seemingly impossible task.
My response was that, in addition to other things, I read a lot of blogs. I find that blogs can be extremely informative, especially when they’re written by people (or companies) that I consider important and/or influential.
Here’s a short list of blogs that I read:
- Live Search Blog
- Official Google Blog
- Yahoo Search Blog
- Fathom SEO – If you’re interested in search engine optimization, Fathom SEO is a gold-mine of information. SEO is critical for anyone working in website development.
- Design Vitality – A Web/Graphic design company. They periodically post helpful links to graphic design tips/tutorials from around the web.
- Yahoo Development Network – A group of Yahoo developers and details about their projects. Cool stuff.
- Matt Cutts – A really important guy who works for Google.
Now, you might notice that most of these blogs come from the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft). Why would a web developer need to read these?
The answer has two parts:
- Search engines are essential to a website’s survival. If users can’t find your content, why even have a website?
- These companies are on the cutting edge of web design… they have to be to keep up with the ever-changing technologies.
Clearly, it’s not an all-inclusive list… but it’s a good start for any beginner.
