Your company’s online reputation is built on the quality of your written content.
If you have sloppy, mistake-filled, or even just hard-to-read blog posts or email blasts, your potential customers will associate the poor quality of your writing with a poor-quality product or service.
That’s not good for your bottom line!
So how can you prevent this damage to your brand?
Hire a proofreader to review your content before publishing or hitting the send button. (We can help. Book a call here.)
Here are five ways a proofreader can improve the quality of your writing and enhance your brand’s online reputation.
1. A Proofreader Eliminates Unnecessary Words for Tighter Prose.
We all tend to use more words than we need to get our point across.
If you’re having a conversation with your friend about the results of the big game last night, it’s not such a big deal.
But if you’re reading a blog post, those extra words can be draining. Most readers scan and skim or come to a post looking for a specific answer to a problem.
We all tend to use more words than we need to get our point across.
Putting extra words in their way is an obstacle they just don’t need, and the “answer” for many people is to simply click away from your site.
A proofreader can come in and clean up your prose, removing unnecessary words and phrases to tighten up the writing.
For instance, many of us use the word that much more than we need. A simple proofreading exercise is to review your document and remove all of the unnecessary thats.
Putting extra words in readers’ way is an obstacle they just don’t need, and the “answer” for many people is to simply click away from your site.
As an example, “I was thinking that we should go to the park,” could be changed to “I was thinking we should go to the park.” This tightens up the text, helping the reader and making it look more polished, without any loss in meaning.
Granted, fixing this once isn’t going to change much. But finding and removing all the extra words? Your readers will take note—and appreciate—how easy it is to consume your content.
A quality proofreader can eliminate extra words and phrases in your copy to help the reader and ensure your message gets across in an efficient, polished way.
2. A Proofreader Finds and Fixes Basic Errors.
This, of course, what pops into your head when you think about a stereotypical proofreader.
And it’s true—finding and fixing errors is the “you must be this tall to enter” sign for our industry.
But with all of the tools and software available today, why would you hire a person to check for mistakes? Can’t Grammarly do the same thing for less time and money?
That would be great, but that’s not the way things are.
No grammar- or spell-checker is perfect. Grammarly can help you find many mistakes, as can Microsoft’s or Google’s spelling and grammar checkers, but no tool is foolproof. And when you run your text through programs like this, you will still find errors.
No computer or tool can know what you meant to write.
How can I be so sure? Because I use Grammarly as part of my proofreading process to quickly find and fix basic errors.
But 80 percent of my work is addressing the stuff Grammarly doesn’t catch.
On top of that, no computer or tool can know what you meant to write.
If you write “our product is complimentary” (i.e., free) when you meant to write “our product is complementary,” (i.e., goes well with another product) Grammarly can’t help you out—and you’ll be giving away your product to boot!
Eighty percent of my work as a proofreader is addressing the stuff Grammarly doesn’t catch.
These kinds of mistakes require a human with strong vocabulary skills to sort out—in other words, a proofreader.
3. A Proofreader Addresses Inconsistencies in Your Text.
English, like every language, was not created in a lab somewhere.
It evolved and grew as people used it.
There are often multiple “right” ways to spell a word.
Because of its organic origin and continued growth, there are few ironclad rules. Rather, there are general rules, exceptions to the rules, and exceptions to the exceptions!
For example, there are often multiple “right” ways to spell a word.
Let’s say you are writing ad copy for your new business. Do you refer to your new venture as a startup or a start-up? Which is correct?
The answer is either choice is correct; they are both in the dictionary.
But what’s not correct is to switch back and forth between the two terms. In these cases, you need to pick one way and stick to it.
A good proofreader will spot and address inconsistencies like this for you.
Why is this important? Because when it comes to your brand, the little things matter.
Other examples might include variations like doughnut vs donut, grey vs gray, or flammable vs inflammable. Each of these choices is “correct,” and it’s all too easy to switch between them without realizing it.
So why is this important? Because when it comes to your brand, the little things matter.
Consistency in the little things shows the level of quality you hold yourself and your company to. Even if only subconsciously, readers will pick up on this and reason if you are that dedicated to your blog, you must be equally dedicated to your product or service.
4. A Proofreader Smooths Out Wording and Flow.
Writing is a specialized skill—not everyone has the ability to put their thoughts on paper in a way that is engaging and relatable.
And even if you do have this ability, creating good content takes time.
This is one area where an experienced proofreader can help—by cleaning up your content to sound and look polished.
Not everyone has the ability to put their thoughts on paper in a way that is engaging and relatable.
As mentioned, proofreaders can make suggestions about how to write a phrase using fewer words, thus tightening up your copy.
They can also help you by finding a more precise term that flows better in the overall sentence (say, by substituting the more specific term top-quality for the general word good when referring to your company or service).
Proofreaders can also help with things like active vs passive sentences.
Generally speaking, using the passive voice is frowned upon because
- We don’t usually speak like this, and
- It’s generally more unwieldy than using the active voice.
But as the previous sentence indicates, using the passive voice isn’t always bad—you just need a balance.
A proofreader can help ensure your balance of active vs passive voice is dialed in.
5. A Proofreader Provides a Sanity Check.
Most writers are too close to what they write to effectively edit their own work.
When we try to edit our own copy, we almost always “see” what we think we wrote, rather than what we actually wrote.
Most writers are too close to what they write to effectively edit their own work.
And to make matters worse, we often rely on our own assumptions without thinking about them—assumptions the reader may not share.
Good examples of this are acronyms and jargon.
If you are a tech-industry veteran writing a blog post for your company’s website, it may not occur to you that not everyone knows what “SaaS” or “TWAIN” means.
A proofreader will help you by identifying words, sentences, or even paragraphs that just don’t make sense to an outside reader.
Or you may write a paragraph about the deepest intricacies of a network without realizing the article’s intended audience is tech newcomers.
A professional proofreader will help you by identifying words, sentences, or even paragraphs that just don’t make sense to an outside reader.
They will also help your audience by defining acronyms, replacing insider jargon, and generally keeping the end reader in mind.
How to get proofreading help
A solid proofreader can save you from damaging your business’s reputation with poorly written copy.
They are your second set of eyes and a safety net to ensure mistakes and inconsistencies get weeded out before your content goes public.
If you need professional proofreading services, Cedar Press can help. It's as easy as booking a call.
Book a call today!