For many companies, the blog is the driving force behind their online marketing plan. It provides a consistent, compelling resource for their target market and client base. The question that plagues most business owners though is how to build engaging content with their blog posts that will garner the increased readership and subscriptions that can turn into sales or conversions for their business. What to write about? The next five points cover how to find the topics to help write content to build any online brand.

Write what you know (With a little Help)

Any successful writer knows that the best way to receive the best response from readers is to write what you know and are passionate about. Comfortable topics allow the writer’s character to come through in the content and engage the reader on a personal level. That being said, it’s not always easy to know all the current news in your industry, so set up some Google Alerts focused on topics that cover your industry. For example, if your company works with computers, set up Google alerts for keywords like computers, technology news, etc. The Google alerts will keep you up on the latest news in your niche.

Locate Private Label Rights Content

Search for “PLR + your industry” to locate any potential free content that has already been created on your niche topics. You can adopt, alter and reuse this content for your own uses. Depending on your niche, you may have to pay for this type of content, but it can save tons of time in content creation.

Research on Social Bookmarking Sites

Sites like del.icio.us, Digg and StumbleUpon are popular sources where industry writers bookmark their blog posts every day. To see what is being said or written about your industry, or to find trends in topics you could make use of, search your industry keywords on a regular basis.

Locate the Industry Experts and Sites

You’ll probably see some trends in the alert information you get from Google… certain sites and authors will begin to stand out as the sources of the newest and most interesting content in your industry. Use these sources as inspiration for your blog content, or reach out to the authors to see if you can do an interview or cover story for your blog.

Read up on Ezinearticles.com

Much like you do research using Google and social bookmarking sites, you can utilize Ezinearticles.com as a research source for your blog content. As the largest compilation of online niche content, you can search Ezinearticles by topic or author to find the latest trends in industry content.Find “what to write about” for your next blog and begin building your readership along with your online brand.