Use RSS Feeds and Google Alerts to Find Fresh Topics

How do you continuously find fresh topics to write about on your blog? One good way is to keep your finger on the pulse of your topic by subscribing to RSS feeds and creating RSS feeds for your chosen key words.

Who are the major players in your market?

Find out if they keep a blog and subscribe to the RSS feed. This way, every time they publish something new, you'll receive notification. If they don't have a blog, find out if they contribute to an article directory such as eZineArticles.com. Many of these directories allow you to subscribe to author-specific RSS feeds. When a new article is posted, you'll know about it.

Keep tabs on the news.

Many sites that feature press releases will let you subscribe to an RSS feed of the releases they post. This lets you keep up-to-date on breaking news in your chosen industry or niche topic.

Create your own RSS feeds using Google News.

This has got to be my favorite technique. Go to news.google.com and find the "News Alerts" link in the left navigation bar. Click on it and you'll be taken to a page where you can create a "Google Alert" for any search terms you like. Create ones for each of your target keywords and you'll receive a notification whenever Google finds something on the web posted with that keyword. You can have it search only news, blogs, web, groups or video, but I usually choose "comprehensive." This gives a broader range of alerts and helps me keep track of what is going on with my keywords throughout the Internet.

Implement these tactics and you'll be hard-press to come up short in the idea department!