12 Smart Tips for Proofreading Blog Posts (Proofreading Techniques)

As a blogger, you have only one responsibility; serving your audience with quality content. And you must know how to do it efficiently.

A big part of content creation most bloggers ignore is proofreading. You don’t finish writing a post and hit publish. Proofreading Blog Posts demands expertise, patience, and smartness.

It’s normal to pride your content as the best. That doesn’t mean it’s error-free. You must proofread it to flush away some embarrassing errors.

What is proofreading for bloggers? How is it done? How can you accelerate the process?

This article answers all your questions. Giving it a shot?

12 Techniques for Proofreading Blog Posts

Below are my favorite proofreading techniques. If you read to the end, you will see why proofreading blog posts isn’t something you should ever ignore. I have simplified for you.

1. Proofread In The Morning

Smart people work early in the morning. Why? Because we tend to be more productive when we just wake up. Our brain is still fresh and had not been occupied with junks.

If you want to proofread your blog post and get the best result, do it in the morning. That’s when you can catch hidden mistakes.

I have adapted to the habit of writing content at night and proofreading it in the morning. Honestly, it helps a lot.

2. Take A Break And Come Back To It

Proofreading is often undervalued. We are always obsessed with hitting the publish button. That’s why we discover many blunders after publishing a new post.

Take time to proofread your content, take a break if you start to feel unproductive, return when you can give your 100%.

Don’t proofread for its sake; do it because you want to make sure your content is fluffs-free and contains more values. Don’t rush the process; it will hurt the quality.

3. Get Rid Of Distractions And Stay Focused

Distractions? Something we can not prevent. The world is full of busy people going on with their daily activities. If you want your proofreading to yield a good result, you must avoid distractions and stay focused.

You are not a computer. You can’t handle multiple tasks at a time. You do them one after the other.

Proofreading needs some quality time. Distractions are productivity killers. Do all you can to avoid distractions. Staying away from your mobile phone helps you stay focus.

4. Read It Out Loud

If your content is error-free, you will effortlessly read it out loudly and fluently. The moment you pause while reading your draft, Know that there’s a mistake somewhere.

Reading your draft loudly is a very effective proofreading technique. Your voice will overcome your brain (processing words). You will quickly identify your flaws.

Our brains and mind are familiar with thousands of words because we use them daily; this is why you can’t quickly catch errors in your content if you read it quietly. 

5. Try Reading It Backward

It’s a simple ideology. Reading backward will make each word sound new to you. Your brain won’t be able to connect words. The writing will sound odd and meaningless.

But…

It’s one of the best ways to write error-free content.

It’s a proofreading strategy that works like fire. I don’t always use it because it’s time-consuming. If you are writing a long piece or you are writing for prominent publications, you should use this technique to cut off unnecessary mistakes.

6. Take Note Of Last Minute Changes

You know those last minutes changes (adding few words, changing punctuation, changing words, and so on), they often create more errors that aren’t noticeable.

If you made any changes after proofreading your post, you would need to proofread it one more time. The few words you added could have altered your entire content without your notice.

The best thing is to proofread, edit, and proofread again. Proofreading once will not help in this situation.

7. leverage Blog Post Proofreading Tools

You are busy; you can’t devote time to proofread your blog post? No cause for alarm, you can leverage a tool and get things done 10X faster.

There are many tools you can use. I have tried a few of them before settling for Grammarly. All you need to do is copy and paste your complete article to Grammarly. It will identify errors at every different stage.

Grammarly is the most accurate online grammar checker. It is the best proofreading tool I have ever used. Easy to use and user-friendly. Create your account now to start using Grammarly. And if you happen to be a college student, Grammarly’s discount for students makes it a steal.

8. Avoid Copy-Righted Material

Since most bloggers devote only a few minutes to proofread their content, they unconsciously use materials they do not own without giving credits.

It’s most common with images, we all want to add beautiful images to our post, but don’t want to create one.

The process of proofreading entails that you remove all copyrighted materials or link back to the source. You can quickly grab free to use images at pixabay and Unsplash, No attribution is required.

9. Have Someone Else Read Your Post

No matter how much some people try to find errors in their content, they won’t see one.

This isn’t because your content is error-free; it’s just normal to believe your content is the most perfect.

If possible, allow someone else read your final draft before publishing it. You will be surprised how many mistakes will be fished out. It’s more effective if the person knows a bit about the subject matter.

10. Do Not Rush And Proofread More Than Once

Things we do more than once are always perfect. It’s hard to hit the target at the first trial.

If you read your post from start to finish once, you will find several mistakes. Read again, and you will discover lesser mistakes. The more you read, the smaller the errors.

You don’t need to proofread 10 times, 3 times is enough. Just make sure you are doing it slow and steady. If you rush, you will end up proofreading more than 3 times before achieving your desire result.

11. Split up the Workload

Imagine yourself proofreading 50,000 words in a single sitting. It’s just not possible. Only computers possess such memory and speed.

If you have thousands of words to proofread, you should split them into smaller bits to make them achievable. Your brain isn’t a computer. It can’t process such amounts of words in a shorter time.

There’s no rule here, just split it to your convenience. If you can handle 2,000 words in an hour, it’s acceptable. Or you do it as you want.

12. Take a Break Between Writing and Proofreading

The anxiety to publish your new post shouldn’t alter the proofreading procedure. It’s a bad approach to start proofreading your blog posts the moment you finish writing them.

Take a break after writing, come back to do the proofreading. Both are two different things that require full concentration.

I have adapted to leaving proofreading for another day. I don’t use to be in a rush to push in new content. If proofreading isn’t done adequately, it can affect the quality of the article.

FAQs: Proofreading Blog Posts For Bloggers

How Can Proofreading Backwards Be Helpful?

The idea here is to allow your brain process words individually instead of processing them as a sentence. You know how you read so fast that you don’t even notice any mistakes in a sentence? It’s because your brain is auto-correcting your mistakes.

Of course, If you proofread backward, your brain won’t be able to join words together to form any meaning. This will simplifier the process of identifying errors.

How Can Proofreading Be Improved?

The more you proofread, the better you become. If you follow the above proofreading techniques and implement them consistently, soon enough, you will become a proofreader for hire.

Are Proofreading Courses Worth It?

Honestly speaking, I won’t invest my money in a proofreading course. I think it’s something you can learn on your own, in your own way.

But, If you are pursuing proofreading as a career, then the investment will be worth it. Just make sure to buy a well-detailed course, teaching more than only basic proofreading techniques.

Does Proofreading Include Editing?

Proofreading and editing can stand separately. Although, to edit a content, you must proofread it. While proofreading does not involve editing. I think it’s reasonable to get both done together if you are paying for a service.

Simply put, editing is (can) be part of Proofreading, but proofreading is not part of editing.

When Should Proofreading Be Done?

You can start proofreading a few hours after writing your content. It’s smarter to give much time between writing and proofreading. I would say 3 hours after writing, just make sure your brain is relaxed before coming back.

Why Is Proofreading Important?

It’s essential to make your content error-free. Readers love to read articles that are smartly formatted with correct grammars.

If you add proofreading to your to-do list after writing content, you will perfect the art of dishing out properly formatted content. You will gain more authority and satisfy your readers.

Conclusion

Proofreading Blog Posts might seem a little stressful, but it worth all the stress. You don’t want to publish a blog post full of mistakes. You don’t want your readers to start seeing weakness in your content.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well. If you can’t devote the required time to proofread your content, you shouldn’t write it in the first place. If you are that busy and don’t have spare time, You will love to ease our work with Grammarly Proofreader, as already said.

I hope you find this post helpful? Please share it with friends. Goodluck.