Part 3f - Maintaining Your Business Blog
Blogging is a great way to expand your online presence, position yourself as an expert in your field, increase your search engine visibility and grow your business ... all at the same time! But to accomplish these things, a blogger must blog on a regular basis, even daily.
Why You Should Blog Often
Regularity is something the best blogs all have in common. The authors of these popular blogs publish quality content on a regular basis, and it keeps people coming back and talking about the blog. Quality content published on a regular basis will help you build an audience faster than any other blogging tactic.
But Where Do You Get Blogging Ideas?
Some imaginative people never seem to have any trouble coming up with ideas for their blogs. I am not one of these people, and I know a lot of bloggers are with me on this. Coming up with good ideas and topics to blog about can be a challenge. You know you have to blog often to grow your audience, but that doesn't change the fact that you sometimes get ... well, stuck.
I would like to offer you an easy solution to this problem. It's called Google Alerts, and you can use it to create an endless idea stream with topics related to your blog.
Using Google Alerts
Using Google Alerts, you can enter key phrases related to your blog and then be notified by email every time Google finds a new page online with that phrase. This is a great way to keep the ideas coming, and you can even select a daily or weekly email option.
For example, if you blog about business law in Austin, Texas, you could enter a few phrases related to that topic and get daily emails about new web articles, press releases and blog posts ... and all of it would pertain to business law. Talk about an endless idea stream!
How to Get Started
To set up Google Alerts for your business blog, just follow the simple steps outlined below. I recommend starting with five to six related phrases, and then scaling back if that ends up being information overload. Remember, you will only receive the email alert as frequently as you dictate — daily, weekly, etc.
- Go to http://www.google.com/alerts
- Enter the phrase / topic you would like to monitor.
- For "Type" just leave it set to comprehensive (the most coverage).
- Select the frequency with which you'd like to receive the emails.
- Enter your email address. Double-check it for typos.
- Google Alerts will send you a confirmation email.
- Click the confirmation link in the email and you're all set.
- You can cancel the alerts any time from a link provided in each alert email.
Phrases / Topics to Use
Again, I recommend starting with five or six phrases related to your particular industry niche, products or services, and your geographical area of focus. Depending on the popularity of the topic, this might produce more Google Alerts than you could possibly blog about. But if that happens, you can simply cancel a few of the alerts and keep one or two that seem to be producing the most relevant news and information.
I should warn you that the first Google Alert you receive for each of your chosen phrases might contain a ton of information. Subsequent emails, however, will have less information because they will only list new items appearing on the Web (press releases, news stories, blog posts, etc.).
So there you have it — a constant stream of news and information related to your business (and your blog). You'll never be at a loss for blogging ideas again. The real beauty of this system is that you can literally set it up and forget about it. With the Google Alerts, the information comes straight to your email inbox after being set up.
Put these techniques into practice today, and I'll guarantee you'll never be at a loss for blogging ideas again!
Blogging Continued >> Blogs and SEO