Blog need food!

That might sound like the climactic speech from a caveman movie, but it's actually a hard truth of blogging. Business and marketing blogs need quality content on a regular basis in order to attract readers and search engines. In other words, you must feed your blog regularly if you expect it to grow. The challenge is coming up with quality content on a daily or weekly basis.

Here's one solution:

Robotic Research Assistant
Imagine having your own Web-crawling robot, surfing the Internet 24/7 to find relevant information you can use in your blog. Think of the time you would save, having this content delivered to your inbox every day. How much would a robot like that be worth?

Would free work for you?

Feed Your Blog with Google Alerts
With Google Alerts, you can enter a key phrase related to your blog and then be notified whenever Google "sees" a new Web document that includes your phrase. In other words, when Google indexes a new page related to your topic, Google Alerts will email you. You can set up the notifications daily, weekly or "as it happens."

As of this writing, Google Alerts is still in beta stage. But take it from me -- it works wonderfully.

A lot of the alerts you get will come from press releases and other developments within your chosen area. That makes them the perfect supplement to your blog. All you have do is summarize the information in your own words.

There you have it, your very own research robot to help with your blogging efforts. Give it a try. Just visit Google's website and click on the "more" link. Then click on "Alerts" and fill in the blanks. Now you've got your own, customized Web crawler!

* Copyright 2006, Brandon Cornett. You may republish this article in its entirety, provided you leave the byline, author's note and website hyperlink intact.