The way you express yourself in your posts and the language you use, plays a very important role as far as content marketing is concerned. The very first thing that will catch a reader’s eye is the language you use in your content. It is very important for you to realize that the accuracy of your content is as important as its quality.
Proofreading is one of the things you can do in order to truly help your content improve and perform better in the online market.
More than spellcheck – what exactly is proofreading?
While most people agree that proofreading is good for the quality of your content, one might confuse it with editing.
In reality, editing happens before proofreading and goes through several iterations during the writing process.
While editing focuses more on how you express and phrase your ideas in your text, proofreading is all about checking errors. It will help you eliminate possible grammar, spelling and punctuation as well as stylistic mistakes in your text. It is the very final step that you have to take in order to make sure that your content is ready to be published online.
What’s in a word – how important is proofreading?
Without proofreading, your content will never truly be ready for publishing.
While it is true that a skilled marketer can help your content become a lot more popular, a poorly edited or error-ridden piece is a complete put-off for your readers, no matter how well you promote it.
Apart from the regular grammar and spelling mistakes, you might very easily change the meaning of what you mean to say..
Here’s an example – both advice and advise will show up as correctly spelt, but the first is a noun and the latter a verb, so they can’t be used interchangeably. The right usage would be: Her advice was very sound! Or, Sarah advised me to join Maroon Oak to help grow my business. Many people also believe that a simple spellcheck is enough to make a post ready for publishing. As I’d mentioned earlier, proofreading is a lot more than just that. Imagine publishing a post which is full of excess commas, no apostrophes and very long sentence fragments. Readability is key when writing an article or social media content. (link to 15 mistakes)Otherwise your content will be difficult and distracting to go through, and readers will focus on the mistakes rather than the message.
Confused between their and there? Here are 30 common grammatical errors to watch out for.
Authority or wannabe? Making your content look professional
Another reason why proofreading will always be important for any business or blog owner, is because the presence of errors will make your content look a lot more unprofessional. Most of the time, content creation doesn’t have to do as much with what you write but rather how you present it. What this means essentially is that you might have a great idea in mind but it will never truly click l if you don’t have the right means to express it. And accuracy and clarity goes a long way in ensuring that.
If you’re the one creating content for your online business, you should definitely consider working with a professional editor who will be able to go through your content, correct any mistakes and also possibly make it more fitting for your niche.
You should also try to use the right vocabulary and terminology in order to attract a certain audience to your website and that can be a little tricky if you’re still new to your field.
Also read: Ideas for content and keywords. And other awesome ways to generate content!
Finding the right means to proofread your content
There are many tools and services out there that can help. It’s important to evaluate your choices from amongst the best of the free and paid tools and services online.
While most people will opt for the free tools, it might mean that you will have to do all the work by yourself. Paying for proofreading services on the other hand, will allow you to work with a professional who will know what to look out for and help you achieve a great result with the minimum amount of effort from your side. Again, the services might vary but you don’t necessarily have to pay a fortune in order to get some professional help.
How can you proofread your content like a pro with 7 Tools!
That being said, there are so many different tools for you to try that it can get overwhelming when you are by yourself. To make that job easier for you, here are some trustworthy and time-saving tools, both free and paid, which you can definitely consider trying out.
One of the most commonly used online editing and proofreading tools, Grammarly will help you make sure that everything you type is free of mistakes. Through suggestions, it will help you easily pick the right corrections and help your content be ready for publishing.
There are many online tools which will promise to help you with proofreading your content but not many can be reliable. This trustworthy service will help you work with a professional editor who will be able to fix your content for you.
Want tools & freebies to learn and help grow your business?
Check out this awesome library of Digital Tools for Entrepreneurs!
If you’re looking for a fast and importantly, free way to proofread your content, Proofread Bot is your best option. All you have to do is copy and then paste your text on the website and the bot will tell you what to change and look out for.
Working with a real person is a lot better than working with an automated online checker. There are simply some things which a bot wouldn’t be able to spot. This tool will help pair you up with a professional, to help you correct all possible mistakes and make your post look polished.
Sporting a concept similar to Proofread Bot, this tool is a little more upgraded than its competitor. This open-source program can help you detect a number of errors that a traditional spellchecker would probably miss. On top of that, it can also find errors in more than 20 different languages.
If you are translating your content to more than one languages and you need some help to correct your final mistakes found by your proofreaders, IsAccurate offers a great list of the best translation services available online to help you pick the best one for your company’s needs.
When you’re trying to keep up with your website’s needs, you will more than likely to come across deadlines and a lot of work. Flash Essay is helpful when you need to proofread your article and have very little time left to do so.
If you’re still new in your niche, you might need some help with making sure that you are using certain words and phrases correctly and not out of context. Hot Essay Service will have one of their professional writers go through your content and make sure there are no embarrassing errors to contend with.
Conclusion
Proofreading is one of the most important steps regarding content marketing. It can truly help make your content look a lot more polished and it can also help make your brand seem a lot more professional. However, this is something that many people don’t quite do as it can be both pricey and time-consuming.
If proofing your work is not your strong point, consider working with a professional writer or editor as a qualified person will be able to spot many more issues and correct them appropriately. Or choose a quality online tool. The more effort you put into making sure that your content is clean and error free, the more your audience will see and appreciate your work.
Err on the side of caution and error proof your work. And thus your brand.
Pauline Farris is a professional translator with a Master’s degree in Translation Studies. Being a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, she has been working as a translator for over eight years. She also enjoys writing and editing and works with professional writing companies such as RatedByStudents and TopWritersReview as an editor and content manager.
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I proofread the work of my Assistant that way there will be new set of eyes that will look into the draft and we are liking it that way. Of course we should also try those tools soon. Thank you for these!
It’s very common to find misspelt word since content so it is indeed important to get a proof reader; I personally use Grammarly
Love this! I totally agree that proofreading is necessary in creating good quality content. I’ve tried some of the websites you mentioned but only the Free Trial Versions.
English is my second language and I need to proofread everything. I have been grateful to be able to use Grammarly.
Given that I spend quite some time trying to proofread and edit the essays and articles my kids have to write for school, as well as my own (for my blog), these tools will help.. thank you
Proofreading is so important, and is unfortunately turning into a lost art! I use grammarly, but the rest of these are really useful to know about.
Well written article.Much informative.Thanks.
I hadn’t heard of the proofread bot! That sounds so helpful. A good re-read makes all the difference in fine tuning my writing.
Grammarly was super helpful for me when I was learning French, but I have to be honest in that I have never used it for English. I should try!
I will have to checkout some of these tools. This would very helpful thank you!
Great article! I use Grammarly and it is fabulous! Thanks for the recommendations!
Such a great article! You see so many websites with some fabulous content but it all falls down and gives a poor impression simply because they obviously didn’t have a proof-reading process. Having another person look at something with fresh eyes will often pick up many things that the author overlooked just because he/she is too close to it and doesn’t notice what a proofreader will easily find.
Proofreading is VITAL if you want people to take you seriously! I always re – read my posts like 80 times before I publish because I know for a fact that if I have one little error I will kinda “freak out” if someone catches it other than me, LOL!
I have the same problem as Christine! I use Grammarly, but sometimes it doesn’t catch the errors like when I am using “their” when I should have been using “they’re” or “there,” for instance. Re reading and editing/proofreading a piece multiple times is often needed before a piece is ready for publishing.
I definitely need to use one of these tools. I read my writing over and over again and still find errors even after I publish. So frustrating! I’m going to pin this to refer back to and get serious about it. Thank you!