I just discovered a great use for Dragon NaturallySpeaking
I’ve written before about how great voice recognition software is as a replacement for typing and as a way to write blogs. It takes a little bit of self-discipline, and some fairly serious editing to turn a verbal soliloquy into a decent article. Still, Dragon NaturallySpeaking saves the blogger huge amounts of time.
But NaturallySpeaking is perfect for another blogging activity: leaving comments!
As many bloggers have discovered, leaving comments on other blogs is a critically important activity for attracting readers to your blog. I recently read on a very reliable source, Steve Scott, in his terrific article Get More Blog Traffic Blueprint that a reasonable target is to leave 20 comments a day!
Now that’s a lot of commenting! To avoid being considered spam, you need to read the article, dream up something moderately interesting to say, and then you have to type it.
Using Steve’s back-of-the-envelope calculation of five minutes per comment, we are talking 100 minutes per day. Since I try to find intelligent blogs with intelligent articles that I read pretty carefully, I think it takes me more than five minutes.
It turns out that this commenting business is quite important.
To quote Steve Scott, “If the ONLY method you follow from the whole Blog Traffic Blueprint series is blog commenting, I guarantee you will see a significant increase in blog traffic. I even offer a money back guarantee (on my free advice) to back that up.”
I started following Steve’s advice, not anything like 20 a day (yet), but quite a few. I saw my blog traffic double on the first day. Now don’t get too excited. Doubling 25 still only makes 50. Still, I can attest to the effectiveness of leaving comments on active sites.
I’ve recently been focusing on blogs that use CommentLuv and allow you to list one of your recent posts.
Bottom line: commenting works to attract traffic to your blog.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking can really speed up the process of commenting. You don’t have to type and, if you’re a lousy typist like I am, you don’t have to fix a lot of typos and misspellings.
But here’s the real beauty part.
The nature of commenting is much more like natural speech. That’s why Dragon NaturallySpeaking lends itself perfectly to “comment mode.”
When you leave a comment, it’s not expected to be the Gettysburg Address. A comment can, and should, have the relaxed quality of ordinary speech.
Armed with voice recognition software, a headset with a microphone, and a ready wit, you have all you need to become a speedy commenting champ.
Your fingers will thank you, your blog will thank you, and often the hard-working bloggers whose articles you comment on will thank you, too. They really will.
Note: I wrote this blog using Dragon NaturallySpeaking and am a proud affiliate advertiser for this great product.
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I’ve wondered how efficient voice recognition software is. I’ve heard some fairly funny stories about what gets interpreted (instead of what’s intended). When I had to dictate reports at a rehab center, I often spelled out certain words that I had a hunch would be problematic. Certainly made for a different mindset, after a few months I got used to it.
It takes “training” to get Dragon to work. I’ve got my Dragon very well trained. To the point where I can speak as fast as I can and it gets it. After every session you get an opportunity to upgrade your Dragon based on your corrections. It really works. My iPhone is absurd. And no training program!
This is the first time for me to hear about the dragon power software, it would save a lot of time typing blog articles and comments. Thanks for the great tip.
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Dragon? this is interesting and will really safe time. I’m one lazy writer and will sure go in for this. I’m more comfortable doing my PHP code thing but writing stuff is not my type. Dragon looks like the savior
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I have DNS and I like it very much – but somehow I never thought to use it for commenting. Commenting is, as you so rightly say, a great way to boost traffic to your blog. You need to do quite a bit of research and reading, and some of the blog posts that you find just won’t be suitable for a sensible comment, so anything that speeds it up has got to be a big help.
Thanks for the tip. Now I just need to find where I left my headset!
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Oh right, DNS is awesome, it has many great uses, I just don’t like the beginning part of using it, because it has to adapt to my personal unique voice and understand my pronunciation of words, and especially my accent, apart from that, it can speed up writing process by a lot!
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Yes, the Dragon has to be “trained” to recognize its master’s voice. It also keeps learning while you use it, and saves its lessons. I keep learning, too.
One tip: Say “What can I say” to get a list of commands.
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Wow, didn’t know that trick, thanks for the heads up.
Harrison Li recently posted..3 Ways To Shine Holy Light Upon Your Words That Baits Attention
Harrison, I’m surprised there was a trick you could learn from me! I tend to get in a rut with my Dragon commands, and there are so many that I never use, but should. When composing in WordPress, I notice that sometimes sentences don’t automatically start with a capitalized word. So if the sentence starts with the word “so” I say “select so” and then say “cap that” and continue dictating the sentence. You just gave me an idea for an article – Dragon Commands You Should Be Using.
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