PB010: Create Alerts and Subscriptions to Keep Your Blogging Fresh and Inspired [Day 10 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog]

How to never run out of ideas for blog posts and be aware of latest developments in your niche Being productive and producing great content for your blog is so important - which is why we've had a number of episodes so far that have been 'writing challenges' (see episode 2 and episode 7) but today we're focusing less on what we 'output' and more on what 'input' we're getting as bloggers. I was challenged earlier in the year to consider this for my own blogging and realised I'd become a little dry and out of touch with my niches - so decided to do something about it. This episode is completely built upon that experience and I hope it gives you some ideas on how to create some inspiring, informed and idea generating input streams for your blogging. The more you're learning, inspired and up to date - the better position you'll be in to help those reading your blog! In This Episode You can listen to todays episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). 5 reasons why setting up alerts and subscriptions can be a great thing for your blog How to set up Google Alerts How to set up Twitter Alerts Other tools for setting up alerts, subscriptions and updates relevant to your niche Mentioned in this episode: Google News Alerts Twitter Advanced Search Twitter Lists Sprout Social Feedly Bloglovin Flipboard Facebook Interest Lists (how to create them) Related Reading This Little Service Absolutely Crushes Google Alerts - Forbes.com Tap into Trending Content Before Your Competitors - Buzzsumo How to Use RSS feeds - Digital Trends How to Set Up Content Alerts - Buzzsumo Tell us What You Did Today? I'd love to hear how you found todays challenge in comments below. Did you already have an alerts/subscription system in place? What new alerts and subscriptions did you set up today? What tools do you use that were not mentioned in today's episode - we'd love to check them out? Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger podcast, episode 10 and day 10 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, your challenge is to create some alerts and systems to help you stay informed, up to date, and inspired to be able to create great content for your niche. Today's show notes are at problogger.com/podcast/10. But first, a quick word from our sponsor, 99designs, the best place for new businesses to build their brand. 99designs makes it easy to get your next project off the ground with quality, affordable design. To get your logo, business card, mobile app, blog template, or more, visit 99designs.com/problogger and get a $99 upgrade for free. Hi, I'm Darren Rowse and welcome to 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. We're on day 10 of 31. Congratulations on making it this far; you're almost a third of the way through. There are many factors to having a successful blog. Being productive and outputting great content is obviously one of them. We've already spent a couple of our days of this challenge focusing upon producing content. Another really important area—in fact, I think it's just as important in some ways—is not thinking about your output but thinking about your input. There's an old saying that we've all heard, what you put in is what you get out. There's some truth to that in this case of blogging. As I look back over the last 13 or so years of my own blogging, I can see a real correlation between the times that I was outputting my best content and the times I was doing the most reading, learning, and listening to others. I can also see a correlation between the times that I was struggling with ideas to write about, feeling dry, feeling burnt out. In most cases in those times, I wasn't really learning, listening, reading, or getting good input.