Blog Editing for Readability: A Crucial Step for Content Marketing Success

Is your business blog not showing the engagement you hoped for? Chances are it’s down to a readability issue. Readability encompasses several aspects, each of which can have an impact on the experience your audience has when they visit your blog. Today’s quick article looks at five not-uncommon readability issues and then discusses why bringing in a professional editor may be the right option to turn things around.

5 Common Readability Issues Blog Editing Can Address

Complex sentences can lead to a lack of clarity and cohesion

As I discussed in my recent piece about professional blog writing services, ensuring that your writing is clear is key to successful engagement with your audience. Run-on sentences, sentences with limited punctuation—or incorrect punctuation—impact readability.

An unbiased and fresh set of eyes is more likely to catch these run-ons, errant semi-colons, and other such issues before publication.

Lackluster or a plain lack of formatting can render an article unreadable

Breaking up run-ons is one thing, but if it leaves readers with a monolithic wall of text with limited whitespace, the effort was for naught. Knowing your audience means you know if they’re skimmers, which makes appropriate subheaders and other formatting even more crucial to their understanding the gist of your piece.

A well-edited blog will make good use of mixed paragraph lengths, whitespace, and other formatting to ensure every reader gets what you want them to get out of your writing.

Too much industry jargon can cause newer readers to tune out

If your audience sees your post on social and clicks through to give it a read, only to find a mass of industry-specific jargon and unfamiliar acronyms awaiting them…well you know as well as I do what they’re going to do.

To keep these readers interest without losing your more seasoned customers and industry insiders, editing your articles to ensure that jargon is kept to a minimum—and when necessary, each must be defined on first use—is the way to go. 

Spelling errors and typos can impact SEO

Google cares about spelling and grammar, too. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the field that grew up to ensure content gets found by searchers. Since their algorithm is programmed using correct grammar, if your keywords are misspelled, your page will not come up on a search results page. 

Consider this—say you start ranking well, and even make it to the coveted featured snippet box for your chosen keywords. Now say a searcher is greeted with typos in that snippet, how are you feeling about your blogging prowess now?

Inconsistent tone and style confuse readers

Your blog should be just as consistent as your website, printed materials, and convention booths when it comes to tone and style. If readers are greeted with one post that reads like a shop manual, followed by one that’s more like a comic book, they’re not going to know which is your brand’s authentic sound.

Editing to a style guide that includes a summary of brand style, tone, and voice will ensure a level of consistency that readers will appreciate and will reassure them that your company’s services will be just as consistent.

Professional Blog Editing: Some Additional Benefits

Can you have your product marketing manager read your posts? Sure. But chances are they have enough on their plate getting the next campaign rolling. This is where it can be cost-effective to bring in an outside editor to take care of polishing your articles to maintain consistency.

Some additional benefits a professional editor brings to the table:

Expertise

A professional editor knows words like you know your widget. Your audience includes potential prospects, be sure you’re giving them the same best-in-class experience when they engage with your content so they know what to expect when they make a purchase.

Objectivity

An outside editor has no skin in the game when it comes to your product, their only focus is on polishing the words. This objective perspective means they’re able to give full attention to that task without being distracted.

Efficiency

In the time it takes you to prepare for the next board meeting, an editor can have your next post polished up and ready for publication. And that includes optimizing it for SEO, as covered in that same last piece, this is an aspect of business blogs that requires more expertise and time than many realize.