Leaning with Intent

Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

Microsoft’s Spelling and Grammar option in Office applications is a very helpful feature. However, sometimes it can be quite annoying. For example, if you write your text in English but use many foreign names or words, you might end up with a lot of text being underlined in red color indicating that you have just made an error. Similarly, the green color suggests that you have just made a grammatical error, and Word will want to correct it. If you would like to switch your spelling and grammar options off, there is a way to do it. If you use word just go to Tools->Options->Spelling and Grammar tab. Generally, the Spelling and Grammar feature is quite useful, but there are times you may want to switch it off.

Google supplemental index is a place where Google stores pages that it deems to be less important. Such pages never rank very high in the search results. Some people even say that it is where Google puts the trash. Fortunately, if any of your pages are stored there, there is a chance that Google will restore them to the main index, as such cases have been reported. The main reason for Google supplemental index is the fact that there is a lot of duplicate content on the Internet. In my opinion, the best way to avoid being listed in the supplemental index is simply not to have duplicate content . There is a lot more to the index that I discussed, but those are the most important facts to remember.

Are you thinking about adding a new category to your blog? I have an idea for an interesting category, namely “Contests”. I have been an active member of the blogging community for some time now, and have seen many bloggers organizing contests on their sites. Many of them did so in order to attract new readers, and a lot of them were willing to give out valuable rewards. What they usually offer as a prize is an item; however, there are also contests where you can win money. If you are looking for a new topic to write about, why not discuss various contests in your posts? I have already participated in a few contests, and each one of them gave me a lot of satisfaction.

When it comes to blogging, bloggers want to have the most interesting articles and information posted on their site. While there is a lot of cooperation between bloggers, you can sometimes feel the tension, especially when a blogger feels that some harm was done to him. This is often provoked by copying and pasting articles from other blogs and posting it on your own. Writing an article is not an easy task, as it requires time, focusing on your task, and original ideas among other things. Nobody wants to have his articles posted all over the Web without permission, and this also includes technology blogs. That is why I encourage bloggers to write their own articles of which they can be proud. Not everyone knows that Technorati has an interesting feature on their website called Topics. Topics is a way to navigate the conversations on the Web, based on the categories you select. You can visit one Technorati Topics page and see live streams of the newest blog posts about the topic you want. Topics pages are being updated very often, so they are different every time you visit, and the posts you see scrolling down the page, will keep you informed about what is going on right now. I think it is an interesting feature, and many bloggers are using it quite regularly to research any topic they are interested in.

Some bloggers chose a niche that is the most promising when it comes to earning money. Others, chose a niche in which they are really interested in. If you choose a niche in which you are interested, there are going to be many advantages. Here is a short list:

• You will not have to do a lot of research. Since you are interested in the subject of your blog, there is a big chance that you already have knowledge to write many posts with little or no research.
• Higher productivity. Your expertise will make your work more valuable, since you know what you are doing. This will result in more work done in less time.
• Having more satisfaction. You will have more satisfaction doing what you like.

I think that it is clear that choosing a niche in which you have an interest is a good idea.

Blogging has become an integral part of our culture, as there are millions of people who enjoy sharing their thoughts with others by blogging. There are many things which bloggers like about blogging, and here are some of them that I would like to list:

-Desire to have contact with others and being part of the blogging community. Everybody needs to identify himself somehow, and most people like being actively involved in a community.
-Desire to do something creative, something that will stay for a long time. People are generally creative beings. Being passive does not bring many people satisfaction. They have an irresistible desire to create something that they will be able to show and share with others.
-Desire to have a popular blog with a lot of traffic and high number of comments. Desire for popularity and fame are other characteristics of humans. What people want to achieve is to be known in the blogosphere as an experienced bloggers who publish quality content.
-Possibility of setting very specific goals and aiming at them. Do you want to have higher Alexa score? Set your realistic goals and try to achieve them. What is nice about blogging is that the more work you put in it, the better results you will obtain.

What is it that motivates you to blog?

Some time ago there was a survey conducted among the largest US charities. They were asked whether they use blogging as means to raise funds, and make their prospective contributors aware of what they are doing and why their support is necessary. Over one third of those charities have already embraced blogging, and even more are expected to join soon. Most of them use at least one of the social networking tools available on the Internet today. It looks clear that the future of blogging is bright, as more and more people and organizations decide to blog. On the other hand, the competition among bloggers is growing as well, so it is up to you how many of readers you are going to attract to your blog. It seems clear that blogging has become a powerful tool.

I would like to discuss RSS feed and email subscriptions. In this post I am not really going to answer which choice is better, but I just want to say that in some cases email subscriptions might be a better choice. WE have to admit that most blogs focus on RSS feeds and RSS subscribers a lot deal more than on email subscriptions. This is probably due to the fact that RSS subscriptions are very convenient, and are more and more popular. So why would anyone not want to be an RSS subscriber, but rather prefer to subscribe by email? The answer is that many Internet users simply didn’t learn yet about RSS feeds, and might not know how to subscribe to a feed or use RSS feed readers. This post is especially directed at blogs which deal with non-technical topics. I think it is important to remember that some people do not know everything when it comes to more technologically advanced stuff like RSS feeds. It is crucial to take that into account if your blog is in a niche that includes a lot of people who are non-technologically oriented. Offering various ways to subscribe to your blog posts is a great way to increase the number of readers you have.

Having a successful blog requires a lot of work and energy, and one of the things that you should not forget about are link exchanges with other blogs. Leaning With Intent has been actively involved in all sorts of marketing. That is because I believe that it might greatly benefit any blog to attract more visitors, getting to know more bloggers, learning from other blogs, or even improving Page Rank, and search engine results. If you have a blog which has a relevant topic, is frequently updated, and preferably a few months old, do not hesitate to suggest a link exchange with me by using the contact from on the website. In the future I might link to this page from the sidebar to attract more bloggers to exchange links with me. I would also like to share some general guidelines when it comes to suggesting link exchanges. It might be useful to you when you will want to exchange links with other bloggers.
-Always be polite. By making the other blogger like you, you have a greater chance of your offer not getting rejected.
-Make sure your blog has similar SEO benefits as the blog you are suggesting the exchange with. This includes Google Page Rank, traffic, and even prestige. Of course, it is difficult to measure the last.

This blog is almost five months old and I have to say that I am very pleased with how things turned out. When I was starting this blog almost half a year ago, I was not sure whether this blog would not prosper for that long. My tracking tools are reporting visitors from all over the world, and this happens even if I am not actively involved in marketing. I think this might be related to the amount of posts which are indexed by Google and other major search engines. There are currently over 160 posts on this blog, and I hope that the next few months will be even better.