6 Proofreading and Editing Tips to Improve Your Content Marketing

When proofreading and editing, stick to a consistent brand voice and to one style of language, tone, point of view, etc., to improve brand recognition and avoid sending mixed messages to your audience. 

If your business doesn’t already have a company-wide style guide, consider creating one and distributing it to your team for use across all forms of communication. Doing this saves your writers time since they won’t have to guess whether their writing reflects your brand’s guidelines and vision. Alternatively, choose a specific manual or style to follow, such as the Chicago Manual of Style or AP style.

It’s hard to deny the role SEO plays in content marketing. SEO is what increases targeted website traffic and boosts your site’s ranking on search engine results pages. Once a potential customer is on your page, effective and well-written content is what keeps them there and encourages them to take an action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. 

When editing content, keep SEO in mind by checking for relevant keywords and creating SEO-friendly metadata. You can also boost SEO by editing for readability on mobile devices: organize content into short, easy-to-skim paragraphs and divide it up using headings and subheadings.

Avoid excessive or unnecessary jargon and technical language when marketing to a broad audience. Using overly complex language or industry-specific terms in social media, blog posts, or website content could alienate potential customers and cause them to turn to your competition. If you come across unnecessary jargon when editing your content, try to replace it with terminology that appeals to a wider range of people.

If you do use jargon, be sure to define the terms the first time you use them in the text to avoid confusing your reader. For example, if you refer to “CRM,” write it as “customer relationship management (CRM)” the first time you use it and then use only the acronym after that. Overall, clarity is key with content marketing to ensure you’re reaching the largest audience possible.

As part of your ecommerce business, your content has the potential to reach customers all over the world. When proofreading and editing content for international markets, ensure that you localize the language conventions for that particular region. 

Localization helps you improve the efficiency of your content and saves you money by allowing you to repurpose content for a variety of markets.

During the editing process, verify the factual accuracy of any claims or statistics you’ve stated in your content. This is an important step, as any misinformation (even if it’s unintentional) could cause your audience to lose trust in your brand. 

Experts have shown that customers are more likely to purchase from businesses they view as reliable and dependable. And building trust with your customer base will help ensure they remain loyal to your business and recommend it to others. 

Finally, be sure to check that any external websites linked in your content contain accurate and trustworthy information.

Proofreading should be done after editing to avoid the need for a second proofread if major changes were applied during the editing process. When proofreading, it’s important to check for errors (such as grammar or spelling mistakes) that could cause potential customers to question the authority of your business or view it as disorganized. 

Proofreading content you’ve written yourself can be difficult, so you should get a fresh perspective by having someone unfamiliar with the text, such as a professional freelance proofreader, look it over. Not only can a professional check your content for errors; they can also read it with a critical eye for detail. They can proofread with your specific style in mind and give you tips on how to improve the overall quality of the content.

If you proofread your own content, it’s a good idea to review it on a different device than the one you wrote it on to “trick” your brain into thinking it’s seeing the copy for the first time. You should also take a break between editing and proofreading because your brain tends to ignore mistakes in a text you’ve read over and over. And finally, use a proofreading checklist to stay organized so that you’re not relying only on your memory as you work.