Editing Blogs after Publishing

Posted on July 14, 2012

I have seen many indications (uncorrected typos and misspellings) that continually go uncorrected on blogs, and I believe I know what the reason is. It has been mentioned already that some people mistakenly think that their blog is going to “resend” to everyone subscribed to it every time they touch it.

Forget about it!

Blogs are designed to send out new post notifications on “publish” (which it will only do once)… not on “update”! So you can go back in as many times as you want to after it has once been published, and make any corrections or additions you want to without overwhelming your audience!

It doesn’t matter whether you need to correct a simple typo, add or change a whole paragraph, add or change pictures, or even go back and install ad banners on it, the blog will not “re-publish”. Once published the next button that shows is always “update”. Even changing the title will not “re-publish” it.

And it doesn’t matter whether you make the change the next day, the next week, or the next month. So there is no excuse for the mis-spelled words, typos, and grammer problems that I see happening on many of the blogs. Some people may not realize they have mis-spelled a word, but most blogs have a spell-checker built in. For instance, on WordPress, and most other editors, it’s that little checkmark icon on your WYSIWYG editor bar at the top of your editing window with ABC above it. All you have to do is click on it. If you want to check a particular word, just highlight the word, and it will tell you whether it’s right or wrong and give you suggestions for what it should be. A simple click on the correct suggestion will correct it in the blog.

Although such gibberish as we are used to in texting is getting to be the common thing these days, a text screen is the only place that is is acceptable to the public. A poorly spelled blog, or any other article that the general public reads is going to be shut down by most people before they even get through it, and it will forever be labeled as “unprofessional”.

I go back and re-read all of my posts and pages, sometimes many times, before I see a problem. It’s human nature to miss some things, and despite the proliferation of computers and key pads, very few of us have ever learned to type correctly and accurately. But with the spellcheckers built into ALL computers, there is no excuse to not learn proper spelling. All you have to do is “care” how your posts look! If you don’t “care” enough to make them right, the public may not “care” enough to read them! It destroys the credibility and intelligence level of the author in the public’s eyes!

And now it’s time for a brake!

OK, how many of you missed the fact that a brake is something on a car, and a break is something that you take when you’re tired?

Come on… admit it! Spellcheckers won’t catch that kind of stuff because both are correct spellings for their own purpose. Such things as “form” and “from” are common mis-spellings and that is why you can’t depend on your computer for “everything”. It pays to go back and LOOK at your work, too.

If you are not good at spelling and grammar, then have someone that you do know is good at it, to check your work for you. If you are writing something like sales copy, it may even pay you to go to someplace like http://fiverr.com and pay someone five bucks to do it. In the long run you will lose much more than that from not having it right. Heck, you can even hire someone to write your sales copy for you there, if you don’t know how!

Best wishes for successful and correct publishing!