I just came across an article on Shankar Ganesh’s tech blog. It lists 11 things to do before you hit the publish button. That post really set me to thinking, because sometimes I’ll just write up a post, edit the timestamp, and then publish it to be posted up on the blog later. I don’t usually give a second thought (when I really should give a third, fourth, or fifth!)
But after reading Shankar’s article, I’ve realized that not doing certain things before I publish can fatally cost me. And if you’re making the same mistakes as I am, it will cost you too! For example, sometimes I don’t even read over my post a second time, and I don’t exactly spell check as I should. If a post is full of grammatical and spelling errors, or is just awkward and doesn’t make sense, it’s a big loss. Even if the idea of the post is genius, it will suffer if it’s full of mistakes. You may lose visitors and your post will not be linked to very much because it won’t be considered a good source of information.
Some things you should stop and do before you publish include re-reading multiple times, checking the links, thinking about your post’s images or lack of images, making sure you’ve categorized the post properly, utilized keywords, and linking to some of your blog’s other posts.
Shankar also suggested you use “post teasers“. This is one thing I disagree with, because these annoy me. I don’t like having to click “read more” and letting the page load up again. Most times, if I’m forced to do this, I will skip the post altogether. Readers can get pretty frustrated with post teasers, so I’d just advise you to stay away from them!
So now, are you thinking about how you need to think before you publish? If you don’t think and leave your post filled with (or even just containing a few) mistakes, that can be a very costly error. From now on I will try to write my posts with better clarity and I will read over them when I’m done. If I’m not sure about a post, I will let it sit until I decide whether I want to publish it or not. By making your posts better quality, you make your blog better quality, and in turn your readers will thank you by linking to your articles and continuing to read your blog!
Of course, please never expect me to be perfect all the time. I try! ;D
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I have to admit that a lot of times I just write it and publish it as well. I should at least go through and proofread if anything!
Yes, sometimes it’s hard to always proofread (especially for me, I’m quite the lazy and impatient person!) but it definitely does pay off. I’m going to pay more attention on this blog from now on
Firefox 2+ has a handy feature that underlines typos and spelling errors when I am writing posts in Wordpress.
Once I have finished writing I usually save the post as a draft, go do something else for a while, and then come back and re-read the draft. I usually spot grammatical errors and missing words (I always seem to leave out the word “not” for some reason!!) at that point. heh, sometimes I don’t though.
I guess if you were to be really pedantic about proofreading you’d ask someone to also look at the post before it’s published - a fresh pair of eyes is all the better for spotting mistakes!
Yes, I recently started using Firefox again. Where it underlines errors is so helpful for me; it makes it quite easy to look back and find quick mistakes. Of course, re-reading is still best because sometimes I write things that just don’t make sense at all.
That’s a smart idea. I try to proofread right away, which not only is tiring but not as effective. Hehe, I might start doing that too, doing something else for a while and then coming back to re-read. I’d probably catch the mistakes more easily and be more interested by then. Thanks for pointing this out.