If you’re new to blogging or don’t have a dedicated blog editor, you may rely on your own self-editing skills when publishing new posts. Even with limited resources, you can still produce quality blog posts free from spelling, grammar and factual errors. Here are a few ways to elevate your content during the blog editing process.
1. Don’t Edit While Writing
Whether you’re running the show or part of a team at a content marketing company, avoiding editing as you go can be a huge timesaver, especially when you’re working with a limited number of personnel. While it’s okay to occasionally rewrite a sentence or fix a typo, you should continue moving forward during the writing process to maximize your efficiency. By completing the first draft quickly, you can focus your efforts where they’re needed most – on blog editing.
2. Take A Break Before Diving Back In
When editing your own work, you need to give it time to breathe. Step back from the blog post, work on something else and then sit down with it later. By letting the post simmer, you’ll be better able to see opportunities for improvement, spot grammatical errors and call out awkwardly worded sentences and other mistakes.
3. Start With The Big Picture
Forget the details for a little bit and concentrate on the overall purpose of the piece. Are there sentences or whole paragraphs of irrelevant information? Do you find yourself repeating the same general ideas? Are there areas where more information would benefit your readers’ understanding of the post?
In this stage, it’s okay to play with the structure of the piece, move around paragraphs and add bullet points. You may even decide that a listicle or infographic may work better than a standard-format blog post or that your piece would work better as part of a series.
4. Make Sure To Tell A Story
Every story has a beginning, middle and end – and so should your blog post. Take your readers on a journey by making sure that your blog post draws them in (the introduction), gives them lots of information (the middle) and wraps up the post (the conclusion and call to action).
5. Cut Down On Word Count
While reading through your first draft, you may notice that you use a lot of expletives, or words used as filler that don’t add anything to the piece. Examples are: it, that, there and here – words that are usually combined with to be verbs.
In this phase of editing, removing expletives will help strengthen your sentences. Other ways to cut down on unnecessary language – and thus, word count – include trimming out weak adjectives, redundant phrases and wordy sentences that muck up your writing. Need more tips for blog writers? Check out our blog post on cutting down word count to sharpen your content.
6. Switch It Up
After your first draft, you may notice that you have certain writing habits, such as starting sentences with “make sure” or using a particular word, like “remarkable,” way too often. As you edit, fine-tune your language with stronger words and vary your word choice. Repetition may work in some forms of writing, but in blog posts, it just makes your content look lazy.
7. Don’t Rely On Spell-Check
Did you use the wrong form of your? How about flour instead of flower? While spell-checkers are great for catching commonly misspelled words, they have their limits. That’s why you must proofread your work a couple times through.
As you edit your post, look for inconsistencies, such as different spellings of movable and moveable. You’ll also want to keep an eye out for missing punctuation marks. Then, read your post aloud. You’re more likely to notice mistakes when you can hear how each sentence sounds.
8. Refine Your Title
According to HubSpot’s 2016 report, “Compounding Blog Posts: What They Are and Why They Matter,” the highest performing blog posts have 6 - 13 words in their title, while blog posts with 11 - 13 words in the title consistently pull in the most traffic. Keep these numbers in mind when converting your working title into a final heading. You should also incorporate strong keywords proven to generate more organic traffic.
Whether the blog writers at your content marketing agency are stretched thin or your website just isn’t performing like you think it should, our blogging subscription packages may be the right fit for your business. We’ll work to create fresh, relevant blogs that are tailored to your brand, and ensure each blog post is edited to our rigorous standards.
About Virtucom Group
Consistent business blogging yields results – more clicks, more subscribers and – ultimately – more conversions. Whether you’re writing an automotive blog, an accounting blog, a healthcare blog or a home renovation blog, blogging for business and content development are useful for any industry. Follow the content writers at the Virtucom Group blog as they share digital marketing tips and discuss website content writing services that can optimize your business blog.
