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Your teachers always said to read over your work, but long gone are the days when what was on the line was a single paper grade and all your editing tips came on a worksheet handed out at the beginning of the year. Now, when you want the blog you pour heart and soul into to find and keep an audience, those days of skipping the editing to get a few precious hours of sleep are over.

Luckily, Chandra K. Clarke of Scribendi.com dropped in to Social Media Explorer with a few reminders on editing updated for the blogosphere, but feel free to drop your English teacher a line to thank them for what you do remember from those bygone school days.

1. Edit for context

As a blogger, you need to know your audience. Your tone should be aligned with that of your readers. Your blog post says a lot about your personality, so be mindful of your tone. What’s more, when you’re publishing things online, anyone can find your entry and read it. Take your personal context into account in the editing process; remove any language or thoughts that you wouldn’t want your boss or co-workers to read.

You also need to be sure to pay attention to the structure of your blog post. Do your headlines properly identify what you will discuss in that section? Does your post look cluttered, or can a reader easily scan it? These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself when looking at the structure of your post.

2. Check your facts

Your blog must be factual. The Internet may not require citations and references, but presenting false statistics or flat-out lies as facts will reduce your readership. It is important to check your facts in relation to the context of your blog; a humor blog is more likely to exaggerate events in order to get a laugh, but if your genre doesn’t call for outrageous antics, edit them out. Your competition is a tough crowd, and if you’re constantly spouting lies and false truths, your credibility will forever be in question.

Full story at Social Media Explorer.

Writing a better blog.

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