How To Self Edit Your Blog?

In this day and age it seems everyone has a blog. They have marked their own corner of the world wide web and have staked their claim. Some of the blogs you will stumble across are very high tech and have amazing content and graphics. Some are simply photos with a few sentences of text. In between there are those who are trying to get from one level and make their blog an attraction. Something someone wants to visit and spend time reading. The best way to make sure that your blog is something someone wants to visit is to take a few minutes before you hit publish (and sometimes after you have already hit publish) to review and edit your work.

Every blogger-- every writer-- should edit their work. Whether you do it yourself for those of us small bloggers or have teams of editors for the big conglomerate blogging sites, one should always take the time to edit. If you are going to go to the trouble and effort of actually creating and posting a blog entry, it is certainly worth your time to make sure that post is correct and reflects you and your sentiments properly.

Draft:

Write your first draft. Put your graphics and/or pictures where you want them. Have everything written the way you think you want it. Make sure you have saved this document; we all have horror stories of vanishing posts and failed Internet connections. Some of us learned the lesson the hard way in College when entire papers were lost when computers crashed. There really is no such thing as saving too much.

Once you have the blog post written, go back and read the entry. This time, don’t read it looking for that spark of magic that is going to whisk everyone into a state of euphoria. Read it clinically. Did you spell the words right? Did you forget any punctuation? Make corrections as necessary.

Preview:

Many hosted blog sites like blogger and the like, have a preview feature that allows you to see what the blog post is going to look like after it is published. Use that feature. This will show you if the picture you posted is too far to the right or the left; whether your signature is attached to the caption of the picture and needs to be moved. Being able to preview what the post LOOKS like let’s you determine if you need to separate the paragraphs or if the picture is too wide for your text box.

Wait:

Granted, this one isn’t always an option but it is best if you can let a little time pass between writing and reviewing. Typically, when editing your own work, one tends to see what one expects to see. If you can let a little time and distance pass between you can get a fresher perspective. That said, one doesn’t always have that luxury. Even if it is just a short break-- check an email, get a cup of coffee, let the dog out; then go back and re-read your content.

Review:

Be critical. Does your post express what you wanted it to say?Does it say it the way you wanted? Depending on the style of your blog and where you might have it networked; do you use phrases that would be offensive. If you have a question as to the spelling of a word, there are online dictionaries grammar checkers and thesauruses that will help you find “just the right word”.

Even after you hit publish, the editing doesn’t stop. With many blogs being read in various reader formats, one key is to subscribe to your own blog. That way you get to see it just as many of your readers might. What looked like a perfect fit on the regular website of your blog might be a bit off once it’s moved into an feeder. Subscribing to your blog lets you see just how it looks to them and you can see what might need to be tweaked. You can always go back into your blog post and make additional edits to ensure that the content you are putting on the web is the best it can be.