Finding time to keep your blog running smoothly is worth the investment, as we learned last week.  This Cyber Monday I’d like to explore some ways to assure that your content is always timely and interesting!

If you want visitors to return to your blog often, it’s well worth taking the time to offer information that’s fresh, useful, and targeted to your niche.

But how do you do that?

Here are 5 tips to get you started:

• Check Digg for popular items in your area. I encourage you to register with Digg and explore this powerful tool for identifying what people are finding interesting on the web.  I just now did a search for “Time-Management” and came up with some interesting links that could help shape a future post!  Once you’ve done your search, you can sort it by Best Match, Most Dugg, or Newest First, depending on your need.

• Take a look at Alltop, which may be best described as follows (taken from their site):  You can think of Alltop as the “online magazine rack” of the web. We’ve subscribed to thousands of sources to provide “aggregation without aggravation.” To be clear, Alltop pages are starting points—they are not destinations per se. Ultimately, our goal is to enhance your online reading by displaying stories from sources that you’re already visiting plus helping you discover sources that you didn’t know existed. If you are stuck for content, try scanning Alltop for ideas and links!  You can create an account and set up your own page, adding items by clicking the “+” sign next to them.

• Set up and use your Google Account to filter your news. You can also use Google Alerts to set yourself up to receive email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of topic.  You might try entering some of your keywords for starters – then you’ll receive, in your inbox, notice of items that contain those words.

• The Twitter search feature is also a great tool for identifying trending topics in your niche! Just enter your keyword(s) and check out the tweets!

• Finally, I also suggest subscribing to other blogs in your area of expertise (either via e-mail or, for greater efficiency, in a reader).  Then scan those feeds for interesting ideas and content.  This can be a great spark to get your creative juices flowing.  Also, when you link to others’ blogs you are developing and maintaining important relationships on the web.

How do you keep your blogging fresh and intriguing?  I’d love to hear what works for you!

Related Posts

• Finding Time with Blog Talk Radio and Some Quick Computer Basics
• Building From the Blog Up: 3 Tips
• Finding Time to Optimize Your WordPress Blog
• Keyword Tools for Your Blog Content
• Using Keyword Phrases in Your Blog: Variation on a Theme

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Blogs, Business Planning, Marketing Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Coach Paula Eder, Ph.D., The Time Finder Expert, has 35 years of success helping individuals, small businesses, and solopreneurs align their time choices with their life goals and core values. Heart-based time management is her passion. Paula enjoys nothing more than working with people to recognize and help facilitate the small time choices that lead to large, life changes … because the way you use your time is the way you live your life!

If you're ready to stop feeling overwhelmed, sign up for Paula's FREE Finding Time Boundary Template at http://www.findingtime.net/ezine.html/. And for more time tips and techniques, visit Paula's Blog at http://thetimefinder.com.