Proofreading Tips and Tools for Content Marketing Specialists

Going through the proofreading stage before publishing content for marketing purposes is no longer a recommendation; it’s a necessity.

If you investigate your competition, you will notice that some rivals publish flawless content, while others don’t care much about grammar and spelling flaws.

The posts from the second category don’t look good.

If you don’t offer top-notch content, why bother with content marketing at all?

Proofreading is the process of correcting all mistakes in terms of punctuation, spelling, grammar, and word choice.

This stage won’t take much time, but it will improve the overall quality of the content, as well as the impression your target audience gets.

Now that we clarified the importance of publishing polished content, let’s see how you can achieve that result easily.

1. Make sure there is no plagiarism involved

Your content marketing efforts will be useless if you ignore this aspect.

If you use online resources to compose your articles, you need to reference them properly.

Even if you do your best to express unique ideas with your own words, you should still run the text through a plagiarism detection engine just in case.

Plagtracker is the most popular plagiarism checker. Most content writers and marketers prefer this engine because it provides detailed reports that help them create absolutely unique content.

PaperRater is a multi-purpose tool that functions as a grammar check and plagiarism detection tool. This is one of the rare free tools of this type that actually work.

2. You cannot proofread your own work effectively

The sooner you realize this, the better your content marketing campaign will become.

When you read a perfectly-written magazine or newspaper article, you know it was covered by a team of editors and proofreaders before it was published.

Most online articles and blog posts haven’t been proofed by professionals… that’s why they usually contain silly mistakes that could have been avoided.

Even repetitive words and complex phrases seem natural when you read your own text, but a reader will easily spot the inconsistency.

The eyes of an editor are unbiased.

The best part is that you don’t have to reserve a huge budget for an in-house editor.

Essay Writer is a website where you can get your articles edited, proofread, and formatted by true professionals.
All members of the team are qualified to work on specific types of content, so you will be paired with an expert who will make your article perfect without losing your unique voice.

These editors clearly have a perfect understanding of the English language, but they also have a great base of knowledge in the niche they are covering.The collaborative feature of the platform puts you in charge of the entire process.

3. Improve your grammar skills

You probably assumed it would come down to this.

Without great grammar skills, it will be impossible for you to make the content perfect.

Don’t be disappointed if English language skills are not your strongest feature.

You can always become better if you stay committed and use tools that will help you master the rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax, and word usage.

These are the online tools and guides that will help you on that journey:

10 Common Grammar Mistakes that Will Ruin Good Content is a rulebook of flaws you need to eliminate during the proofreading process.If you make sure to cover the 10 points suggested in the article, your content will immediately gain on quality. Of course, you shouldn’t stop there.

Top 10 Grammar Rules You’re Probably Breaking is a short collection of important grammar rules that will make you aware of the most common mistakes.

The .pdf version of this guide is quite convenient, since you can print it out and keep it near your desk.

Quick and Dirty Tips, the website maintained by Grammar Girl, is an essential companion on your journey to becoming a better writer and proofreading.

You’ll find short, but very effective grammar tips that will resolve all dilemmas you have.

GrammarBase is one of the most effective editing and proofreading tools out there. This works as a free Chrome extension, which will warn you about typing and grammar mistakes on the go.

If you are using Google Drive or another online tool for content creation, you will find this extension very useful, since it’s much more intuitive than the built-in proofreading features of most word processors.

4. Don’t rely on a simple spell-check

The Spelling & Grammar feature of MS words is certainly useful, but it won’t do all the work for you.

This tool won’t save you from common errors such as there instead of their, or it’s instead of its.

You need a more powerful online tool to discover these nuances, but remember: automated software cannot replace a real editor.

After the Deadline will locate some of the most common spelling and grammar errors. It will also offer grammar and style suggestions that will help you improve your work.

5. Take some time off!

If you are confident in your grammar skills and you decided to proofread the content without hiring a professional editor, then this is the best advice you can take: give it a rest.

Hopefully, you are not working against a tight deadline, so you can allow the work to settle for few hours or a couple of days.

---

---

When you come back to it, you’ll notice flaws that were invisible to your editing eye when you first read the text.

If you just wrote the content, it will seem just perfect when you read it.

When you forget about it for a while, you’ll be able to approach it from a reader’s point of view.

Proofreading is Mandatory for Creating Impressive Content

It doesn’t matter what type of product, service, or website you are trying to promote.

The task of proofreading is inevitable if you want to leave a good impression for your target audience.

If you publish a text full of flaws, its essence won’t matter, since you’ll get many rude comments from people who noticed the imperfection.

You won’t regret implementing the above-listed tips and tools into your content marketing practices.