|
Are you worried about revising blog posts that you wrote a few years back? Think it’s dishonest or underhanded? Read on to find out why you should embrace editing your blog content, regardless of when you wrote it.
What’s included in this post
What a blog is
A blog is simply a collection of web pages.
Just like other web pages on your site, blog posts include an H1 heading (the blog-post title) and text. You can add additional headings, buttons, links and other audiovisual material, as well as SEO-friendly meta data and alt-text in images to improve accessibility. Unlike other pages on your site, blog posts are organized in a way that makes the content more accessible for readers, perhaps via some or all of the following:
How the search engines find blog content
When a user types a query into the search engines, those search engines scour visible web pages all over the world for signs of relevance.
The likes of Google don’t give a damn about:
What they are interested in is whether you’ve published content that’s relevant to a search query. So a blog post with keywords and phrases that align with a user’s query will rank higher in the search results. They’re also interested in how long users stay on that page, and what they do when they leave it. When people stick around on a particular page, that’s a signal that you’ve offered a good user experience. And if you create links from a blog post to other pages on your website (for example, another blog post, a resource library or your editorial services page) that a user finds interesting and so doesn’t bounce out of your website, that’s another indication that you’re providing relevant solutions to the searcher’s problems. The more relevant pages you have on your site, the more likely they are to be listed higher up the results of a search query, and the more likely you are to be visited by that ideal client who clicks through. Why there’s no such thing as an ‘old’ blog post
Given that blog posts are just web pages, and that relevant web pages are more likely to be found by the search engines and listed in the search results, a really useful blog post – one that answers a question often posed by searchers – will be visible and valuable even if it was written years ago.
In that sense, there’s no such thing as an ‘old’ blog post. Remember, Google doesn’t care about the date of publication; it cares only about how relevant your content is to a search query. The question editor bloggers therefore need to ask themselves is: Do you want people finding content on your business website that
If the answer’s no, it’s critical that you frame your blogging mindset in terms of ‘what’, not ‘when’. Historical record or a reflection of your business’s values?
None of us would dream of including an old phone number or email address on our contact page, or an editorial service that we no longer provide on our services page, or a logo we’ve long since abandoned on our home page.
That’s because we don’t consider our contact, services or home pages to be historical records of what once was. Rather, the content on those pages reflects our business as it is now. The same applies to a blog. This is merely a collection of other web pages on your site, and so it needs to be treated similarly. Every blog post needs to be regarded as if it were published yesterday. Blog content is therefore current. That content is a reflection of your business and your brand values as they are today. Even if that content was published ten years ago. Certainly, some written materials are historical records – a journal article published in 1969, the first edition of a book, the minutes of a meeting – but editors' blogs are not. And so if you have blog content on your website that doesn’t reflect your business brand as it is now, it’s time to update it. Your website is your business shop front, the digital land that you own and control. And you have a duty to preserve its integrity. What about content written by guests?
When you offer guests the opportunity to write for your blog, you're giving them access to your platform.
YOUR platform. It’s still your land, your business shop front, and it’s you, not your guest, who is responsible for that space. You therefore still have the right to preserve your website’s integrity. And if that means some sort of intervention, so be it. If you’re now uncomfortable with the content – even though you weren’t when you published it – decide on the most appropriate way to ensure it reflects your business’s brand values. How you might update your blog content
The decisions you make about your blog content are the same as those you’d make for the content on any other web page on your site.
Revision You might choose to edit existing content so that it’s up to date and accessible. Revision’s a great option for posts that rank high in the search engines for particular queries, and drive potential clients to your website. You get to keep your findability but ensure your existing brand is intact. Do make sure these valuable posts link to other relevant content on your website. Deletion You might decide to delete entire posts, thereby removing those web pages from your site. Deletion’s a good option for the following types of blog content:
Repurpose You might decide to rewrite, using the same theme but bringing your current experience into play. Repurposing’s a good option for when your original blog post tackled a theme that’s relevant to the kind of people you want to visit your website, but you need a complete rewrite to ensure the content’s bang up to date and reflects your editorial business’s brand values. Might you tag out-of-date posts as archive material instead?
Tagging blog content as archived material rather than updating it is not a solution because it’s still visible.
And website visitors often scan content, and so likely won’t notice the date or an archive marker. Instead, they’ll search for the solution they originally came to the post for. If that material’s out of date, the damage is done because what they're reading isn't reflecting your current brand values. There are online online archives, and those serve a purpose, but that’s not the purpose of your editorial blog. Your blog posts, like every other page on your website, should show potential clients why you’re a great fit for each other now. Summing up
Edit your blog content with alacrity! It’s not just okay to do so; it’s essential to do so. Editorial business websites tell our potential clients:
Every single web page on our site needs to reflect that messaging. And since blog posts are just web pages, they should be current and relevant. Out-of-date blog content screams out-of-date business. That has no place in any editor’s marketing strategy. And the date a blog post was published is irrelevant because that’s not what determines its findability. It’s relevance to a search query is what makes it visible. And if it’s visible, it’s visible now. Happy revising! Related training resources
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
1 Comment
If engagement with your editing or proofreading blog is stagnant, spruce up your posts with these 4 fixes.
What’s covered in this post
Here's what this post covers:
1. You’re not solving problems
Blog posts that offer solutions to problems are about the reader. Blog posts about your journey, your opinions, your experiences are about you.
It’s your blog and you can put on it whatever you want. Just bear in mind that problem-solving content will always do better in the long-term. Here’s what I’ve typed into Google in the past two hours:
Those are all problem-based queries. I was searching for solutions. Do I read opinion and experience pieces? Sure, now and then if they’re written by people I know, trust, like and am interested in. But mostly I search for solutions to problems. THE FIX If you’re blog engagement is stagnant, take a look at the content and think about whether you can shift the focus away from yourself and onto your reader. 2. You’re not solving the right problems
Perhaps you are solving problems but they’re not the ones your target audience is interested in.
For instance, you might have some articles that help new editors decide which training course to take, or which online networking groups to join, or which conferences to attend. Those are great if you have training, coaching and business development products and services in your business portfolio because they help target readers get to know you and trust you. There’s even a little SEO juice in the editorial key words and phrases you’re using. However, if ultimately you want to be found by, earn the trust of, and sell editing services to a a writing client, it’s their problems you need to solve. THE FIX Consider who you want to sell to. It is editing and proofreading services to clients? If so, make a list of the 20 problems you come across most often when you’re working on editorial projects. The analysis of and solutions to those 20 problems are the basis for 20 blogs posts. If the issues are complex, break your 20 posts into 40 or 60 smaller chunks. Niche topics are accessible to your readers, but also offer you a more manageable writing schedule. Plus, while niche problems are less likely to be searched for, when they are searched for they’re more likely to be found because there's less competitive content. 3. You’re solving the right problems but not signalling why your post is relevant
If you’re solving niche problems for your ideal reader, but your posts aren’t ranking, take a look at your signalling.
Google has no sense of humour – funny titles and headings without key words and phrases that tell the search engines how your post is relevant to a typed query will be invisible. As for busy people, they're not so different to the search engines in that they scan for relevance too – either in the search-engine results to their query or on your actual post if they’ve clicked through. A boring title that tells the reader exactly how you’ll help them will trump a funny but mysterious one every day of the week. THE FIX Check your H1 titles and H2 paragraph headings. Do they contain relevant key words and phrases? These enable the search engines to identify relevance. Give people scannable H1 and H2 headings that tell them what’s on offer in the paragraphs that follow. If you can combine being witty with being informative, fair play to you. If you have to choose, go for informative! 4. You’re solving the right problems but not sharing your solutions
Readers love solutions. But to love them they have to know they exist.
Well-crafted blogs that solve niche problems for your target audience and are findable in the search engines require that we invest time in our blog, that we commit to it, particularly while we’re building our bank of content. It can take a while to build a bank with enough niche solutions to attract those perfect clients, and a while longer to build enough trust so that they’re not just reading your stuff but hiring your services. And until your blog posts are visible, they’re not working for you. THE FIX There’s no reason why we have to sit back and wait for visitors to find us. Share your blog content, and share it regularly. If you have 20 blog posts already, and the solutions you’ve offered in them are still relevant, they’re ‘evergreen’. Don’t assume that just because you’ve publicized them once on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, you can’t publicize them again. Maybe person X didn’t read your post when you first published it. Maybe they did but forgot about it and would enjoy a refresher. Perhaps they won’t read it again but remember thinking it was useful, so they retweet it or share it. Person Y sees it for the first time and – ta-da! – you have a new reader. Why you might decide to stop writing blog posts
If you don’t want to blog, don’t blog! It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and it’s certainly not the only way of getting attention. But frame your decision logically.
Perhaps you don’t want to make time for it, or you don’t enjoy it, or you’d prefer to explore different marketing approaches. All of those are informed and acceptable reasons not to start blogging, or to park your blog. But don’t make the decision on the grounds that it makes no difference to how people are engaging with your website. Millions of bloggers from within the editorial community and far beyond know different! If publishing new blog posts doesn’t increase traffic to and engagement with your editing website, that’s not a signal that your blog posts make no difference. It’s a signal that your posts are either invisible or uninteresting. Both are fixable. Wrapping up
An editing or proofreading blog can be a powerful tool that drives people to our websites, shows them what we’re interested in and what we know about, and helps them trust us. Those who trust us are more likely to buy from us.
Effective blog posts – ones that generate long-term traffic and engagement – solve problems, have relevant and scannable titles and headings, and are visible beyond the search engines because we’ve shared them with our audiences. If your blogging isn’t working, fix the process before blaming the methodology! More resources
Some blogs are poorly right from the get-go. If yours is feeling under the weather, here are 6 treatments that will turn it, and your website, into a vibrant resource centre that drives your business forward.
Why people come to my blog
I’ve been blogging since 2011 and my blog is the single biggest driver of traffic to my website – which averages 18,000 page views per month. Given that most of my clients come to me via Google, having a strong web presence is the difference between being booked up six months in advance and being unemployed.
Those visitors end up on my blog for four reasons:
The focus of this article
This article doesn’t focus on the technical minutiae of what platform to use, filling in metadata, writing great headlines, breaking up text with pictures, adding in calls to action, SEO keywords, paragraph length and so on.
That’s not because all the micro stuff isn’t important, but because none of it will amount to anything if the macro issues aren’t in order. Instead, I focus on six big-picture reasons why blogs become poorly, and offer some medicine that will turn them, and the websites hosting them, into vibrant resource centres that drive our businesses forward. Problem 1: The blog doesn’t solve problems
Some of the blogs I wrote between 2011 and 2015 are a technical disgrace but they worked – and still work – because the content is helpful and shareable.
A blog that doesn’t solve problems is a written exercise in self-indulgence and won’t make us the go-to professionals for anything. At best, we’ll be instantly forgettable; at worst, people will talk about us for all the wrong reasons. A colleague recently told me about a piece of video content he’d watched: ‘After 10 minutes I’d lost the will to live. After 20, I’d lost the will for the vlogger to live.’ I trust my colleague, whereas I don’t know or trust that vlogger. Consequently, I didn’t watch the video. There are a ton of online examples of desperate business owners employing attention-seeking methods to get eyes on their content. It can work once, maybe twice. But if we rely on shock, surprise, upset or gaining sympathy with our audience, and no solution, our content-marketing successes will be short-lived. Don’t puke over the reader We all have problems – that doesn’t mean we have to vomit over our audience with our content. Plus, shock and controversy have a short shelf-life. Today’s audiences are easily desensitized and quickly bored, so high-quality problem-solving content will trump the shock factor every time. Nothing should appear on our blogs that doesn’t help the reader move forward in some way. And if we can’t solve a problem, we should hold off, research and rewrite. Only once we have a solution should we publish. When we do solve problems, we make ourselves valuable. People are more likely to talk about, share, like and comment on our blog content. And that has huge SEO benefits over time because the search engines love seeing evidence of a great user experience. Focus on solving the audience’s problems from the get-go and we are well on the way to building a platform that puts us top of mind and discoverable in the search engines. Problem 2: The blog is published irregularly
Lack of regularity is probably the most common reason for blog failure. We do it for a bit, then run out of ideas, or time or passion.
This is how a reader perceives a blog that publishes content irregularly:
Those feelings don’t inspire trust. If your window cleaner couldn’t be bothered to clean your windows on a regular basis how quickly would you try to find a replacement? It’s the same with blogging. No one’s going to talk about or share our content if we can’t be bothered to create it regularly. Earning the rankings and referrals We have to earn the right to be top of mind for referrals and benefit from our colleagues’ and clients’ SEO-driving activity. And without those likes and shares, Google won’t recognize us as business owners who are actively engaging. That will impact negatively on our rankings. Build a blog plan If you don’t have the time or commitment for blogging, that’s absolutely fine. Don’t do it – focus on making your business visible in other ways. Blogging is just one option. However, if you do want your blog to be your primary content platform, the solution is to build a blog plan beforehand. 4 initial steps for your plan
4 ideas for how to generate content
4 ideas for how to save time
Problem 3: The blog is unnavigable
No one searches online for a blog. They search online for solutions. If they click through to our websites, the first place they’ll head for is unlikely to be the blog tab. And even if is, will our visitor find the answer to their problems in the content that’s visible on the first page of the blog?
If we only have 10 pieces of content, yes. What if we have 40? How about 500? Second homes The solution is to create second homes for our blog content – libraries, hubs, resource centres ... call them what you will. You can see mine here. There is not one single piece of fresh content on those pages. They’re links to content elsewhere on my site, with images that depict what problem I’m solving. This resource centre helps my audience find my very best content – the stuff that’s most relevant to them and demonstrate that I’m helpful and knowledgeable, and engaged with their problems. Not funnelling our content through to topic specific hubs is the biggest lost opportunity I can think of. Do this and you will stand out from your competitors for very little additional effort. When we do this, we’re using our blog content to turn our websites into resource centres rather than all-about-me-and-how-great-I-am sites. Problem 4: The blog is shallow
Small-business coaches Andrew and Pete preach the art of creating content that makes people fall in love with you. I love this idea because it focuses on emotion – of getting under people’s skin, making them feel something.
This sits nicely with the problem-solving principle discussed above. When we solve problems we make people feel something – happy, grateful, relieved, empowered. Emotion born from solutions Just to be clear, those emotions should be evoked as a result of our solving a problem. For example, our funnies alone won’t be enough to make anyone subscribe to and share our content in the long term. No one will waste time reading a funny photographer’s blog if he or she doesn’t solve photography problems too. That’s because if all we want is a laugh, Dara Ó Briain and Rich Hall will do it better. Tone on top of solutions Even if our content is technically good, we have competition. Readers need to hear our voices and our personalities in our posts so that we stand out. I tend to go for warm and friendly. Other tone options might include cheeky, funny, blunt, sweary or ranty. All of that stuff is great but bear in mind that it’s just dressing at the end of the day. It should always hang on a body of solutions. Going deeper with solutions There are already a bajillion blogs with the basics just about everything. Repeating the same old stuff is boring, and boring blogs are a killer. We need to bring our blog posts alive with case studies (made-up ones if necessary), and stories based on our own experiences, so that our readers have gravy on the meat and two veg. That kind of deeper detail draws people in, makes them feel like we’re really talking to them, not just stuffing our websites with keywords. That is not to say we shouldn’t aim our content at beginners or focus on the basics – far from it. Rather, our content needs to have personality and detail. When we go deep we make an old subject sound fresh because it’s rich with our voices and our experiences. Problem 5: The blog doesn’t fulfil audience expectations
I don’t visit a dentist’s website expecting to find a treatment for the verruca on my foot. I’m there to sort out my teeth. A blog needs to have a recognizable and understandable raison d’être too.
We’re busy and none of us has time to read everything, join every group, watch every vlog, listen to every podcast, do our jobs, and have a life. Blogs that don’t give people a very good reason to be there are doomed. They won’t be bookmarked, subscribed to or shared. If a reader doesn’t understand why they should bother, they’ll quickly lose patience and go elsewhere. There are two reasons why an audience could become confused and disengage:
Here are two examples where those problems have been solved. Coherent and aligned: The pro presenter There’s plenty one can write about presenting, and that content can be targeted at non-presenters who need to tackle the process, and those who want to run a presentations business. Relevant content might cover the following: dealing with stress, introversion, lack of confidence, speech impediments, organization and planning, which software to use, which venues are best, managing acoustics, scheduling, equipment, payment terms, contract problems, learning resources, apps and plugins to aid preparation, training opportunities, marketing a presentations business, getting published, creating engaging slides, finding and retaining clients, and so on. The presenter is blogging about topics aligned to their core service and targeting an audience with problems related directly to it. The blog is therefore coherent and aligned. Coherent and side-aligned: The condom company There’s only so much one can write about condoms. Durex knows that it will not be able to sustain its audience’s interest in latex and lube, and there are only so many flavours and colours. However, it also knows that its audience is interested in sex, otherwise people wouldn’t need condoms. Durex two blogs: Sex Hub and Play Hub. They offer all sorts of tips about perfect massages, advice on STDs, relationships, other forms of contraception, orgasms, positions ... you name it, it’s there. It’s a very clever way of creating content about a related but more interesting issue. If you can’t sustain long-term content creation around your product or service, shift your thinking sideways but make sure it’s focused on your audience’s problems. Durex isn’t blogging about condoms, but it’s still focusing on content that’s related sideways to its core product. Its blog is therefore coherent and side-aligned. Nudging with a name Naming our blogs can help signal purpose. Mine’s called The Editing Blog, which should be an indication that my focus is on words. I also publish a lot of content about marketing and training for editors and proofreaders. And I offer content about fiction line craft for indie authors, especially crime and thriller writers. It’s not as interesting as the Durex blogs but it solves my clients’ and colleagues’ problems and that’s all that matters! Problem 6: The blog is invisible
Blogging without blog promotion is a supreme waste of time. It matters little that we’ve nailed all of the above if our blog’s invisible. We could spend hours crafting beautiful content for our target audience, but if we don’t invest the time or effort in making it visible it will have no purposeful business or economic value.
Superhero delivery There are numerous ways to promote a blog, and what works for you might not work for me. One thing’s for sure though – social media is the superhero when it comes to content delivery. Three huge platforms – LinkedIn, X and Facebook – offer a superb suite of tools to help us get seen out there. If your audience is hanging out somewhere else, use that channel. What clear is that it’s about more than just posting links and pretty pictures, now more than ever. Indeed, we have to work increasingly hard on these busy platforms with their ever-shifting algorithms. However, persistence pays and there is no faster way to get your blog content, and your business, in front of people than by embracing social media. Automating to make space for crafting Content should be scheduled regularly because on some platforms, X especially, the feed moves so fast that your blog-post links are more likely to be missed than seen. Automate your evergreen posts where you can. That will free up time for posting manually on your core platforms. Manual posting allows us to craft our posts with the algorithms in mind. Six-tip summary
If you're ready to dig even deeper, take a look at my course Blogging for Business Growth. About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Q&A with Louise: Is blogging dead or can I still use it to make my editing business visible?11/12/2017
A reader at the beginning of her proofreading and editing business journey and is keen to get her content marketing underway. Here's her conundrum: should she blog, vlog or podcast?
The question
Eloise said:
Hi, Eloise. That’s a great question! And congratulations on embracing a content marketing strategy early on. The sooner you start, the quicker you’ll see results.
I’m going to break down your question into three sections.
What does your audience prefer?
I think this is the key issue. How you and I would prefer to carve out a niche is less important than what our target audiences want.
I know a lot of pro marketers who have podcasts and vlogs and blogs. However, they still tend to focus on one channel and repurpose the content for others because: (a) they need to appeal to broad audiences with multiple preferences, but (b) they still only have 24 hours in a day. The situation for the editor is, I think, less demanding. I’m not for a minute suggesting that authors, students, charities, businesses and academics don’t consume audio-visual content. They do. I’m suggesting that since they’re looking for editors and proofreaders to help them with their writing, our providing content in written form makes sense. Blogging is therefore a good fit – a natural solution – because people with wordy problems are more likely to feel at home on wordy platforms. Think, too, about search. An academic looking for guidance on how to style her citations according to Chicago is more likely to search on Google than on YouTube, and unlikely to search on Pinterest. Now, of course, the search engines don’t link only to written content – not at all – and the more audio-visual content there is, the more it will show up in the search engines. However, highly ranked content holds its position because the search engine algorithms have deemed it interesting and valuable, based on the extent to which it’s linked to, shared, liked, commented on, and for how long people are engaging with it. We’re more likely to get positive responses to our content if we’re using channels that are suitable. And this is where I worry that the podcast and the vlog are not ideal primary platforms for editorial content ... Which channel best communicates what you’re offering?
What works best will be determined by the nature of your content and what your audience wants to do with it. Here are a couple of examples:
Explaining point of view: Some of my authors are still developing their story craft and I wanted to offer guidance on narrative point of view. I’m not a developmental editor so I asked a specialist, my friend Sophie Playle, to guest for me. What she produced was a detailed, informative overview of what is a complex subject. The written examples from published works that she used to illustrate her examination were superb examples of narrative POV in action. Imagine the pickle we’d have got into if she’d tried to do that with video or audio! Demonstrating proper citation Some early-career academics struggle with formatting citations and references according to industry-recognized style guides such as APA or OSCOLA. Content that shows them how to do it right is high value. Can you imagine doing that with audio? I can’t. Video could work if there were screenshots, but what a bore it would be for the viewer who wanted to return to the guidance later but couldn’t remember the time-stamp marker where the fabulously useful advice bounced onto the screen. Creating great content is about value, but also about accessibility. We need to ensure that our audience can get the help they need as quickly as possible and in a way that makes it usable. Otherwise they’ll become frustrated and go elsewhere. The beauty of the blog is that our audience can scan, grab, like and share quickly. That’s what marketers call a ‘good user experience’. I call it making people happy. Why blogging isn’t dead
I’ve read those articles too. I’m flummoxed by them. They seem to assume that there’s only one market and that it’s full of people with the same problems, and that those people want to access solutions in the same format.
That’s not the case. It can’t possibly be so for the reasons I’ve already discussed. I have evidence too. In 2017, my website received 343,302 page views (green column below). Google Analytics tells me that my blog content was the primary driver. I create content not only for authors but also for proofreaders and editors (it’s how you found me) and it shows that I’m ranking in the search engines for the questions people are asking and that I’m providing answers for. 
Of course, that didn’t happen overnight; it’s taken me seven years to generate that level of discoverability. I believe that the increase this year's page views can be accounted for by a more purposeful approach to branding, scheduling, social media sharing, and content scope.
And while most of those visitors are colleagues (or people thinking about entering the industry), my being discoverable in Google for keyword search terms such as proofreading drives clients my way. You might also be interested in technical writer John Espirian's analysis. John started posting regularly on his blog several years ago and he's been purposeful about branding, scheduling, sharing and scope right from the get-go. He's found a significant correlation between his page views and his blogging. I think his results are superb and demonstrate how powerful blogging still is in terms of visitors to one's website.
You can see the full discussion on LinkedIn here.
Some of the objections raised in regard to blogging are as follows:
I believe there are solutions to these potential problems and I’d therefore recommend paying attention to the following: Mobile-friendly Make sure your website is responsive. That way, all the content – from your blog to your home page – will be readable on a mobile device. Try to keep your paragraphs short – anything more than two to three sentences on your laptop or desktop screen will appear as a wall of text on a smart phone. Multiple formats There’s nothing to stop you repurposing your blog content and introducing other media into the mix. For example, you could include short introductory videos about the blog post that could be used on social media to drive readers to your site. You could also introduce video tutorials into the mix, if and when they're relevant. I've done this with the installation instructions for my digital proofreading marks. Some of my colleagues have created excellent tutorials on macros and using Word's styles function. Or you might also create PDF versions of your blog posts so that readers can download the content to their preferred devices and read it at their leisure. Here’s an example of something I created to alongside my article Should a writer hire a freelance editor before submitting to an agent? And should editors accept the work? 
Subscription numbers
Just because people aren’t subscribing doesn’t mean they aren’t reading, sharing, liking, commenting and linking to a blog. I began building my subscription list back in 2017. By May 2019 it stood at 900+ (and in 2026 it's over 4,000). Compare that with 398K+ website page views in the past 12 months and it becomes clear that readership doesn’t equal sign-up.
It’s lovely to see people subscribing and visiting our sites but there’s a limit to how much we should dwell on the numbers. Someone else might have a website with much lower page-view numbers than mine but be targeting their core clients just as effectively and achieving their business goals.
The big issue is whether we’re discoverable by those who need our help and want to commission our services or buy our books, training courses and other products. Do we have a visible online footprint? Does that help our potential clients to find us? And are we securing the kind of work we want at the fee we desire? Those are the questions we should be focusing on. Density Current evidence suggests that longer blog posts get more likes and shares (see The Ideal Length for Blog Posts, Tweets, and Everything Else in Your Marketing). That can mean that our content is text-heavy. Two thousand words of waffle won’t do the blogger any favours so quality is always paramount. Focus on solving people’s problems and you won’t go far wrong. And if that means walls of text, break them up – not only with paragraph breaks and headers but also boxes, quotes images (Canva is your friend!), and bites of video or audio. Emotional connection There’s no doubt that when it comes to hearing someone’s voice and seeing their smile audio and video have the edge. That’s another reason why you might decide to add these media into the mix. But written content can be emotive too. When we solve people’s problems we make them feel something – relief, appreciation, a sense that they’re not alone, that they’re being listened to. I’m hoping you feel I’ve listened to you by dedicating this Q&A to your question and that you feel happy as a result. And I hope that you’ll share this post and visit again. That’s a win for both of us. And if you publish consistently useful, emotive stuff on your blog on a regular basis, you’ll build trust. When we’re trusted, our content is more likely to be shared and linked to ... sometimes even before the reader has had time to look at it. You can enhance those trust levels by making your blog posts recognizable, for example by incorporating images with a consistent design and your brand colours. Delivery Getting eyes on your blog is tricky at the beginning. Social media is the most powerful delivery tool available and should be incorporated into any content marketing strategy. Invisible content is of no value to you or your audience so build your network and use it to share what you’re publishing. Even if your blog content is solely focused on clients’ problems, other editors and proofreaders will also be interested because their clients might have similar concerns. Plus, colleagues are advocates. The international editorial community is beyond generous ... unusually so, I think. Engage with it, share your blog content with it, and give back what you get through reciprocation. If you create high-quality posts, your editorial friends will support you, I promise. What should you do?
If your target audience wants to receive your content in written format, and that’s something you want to embrace, you should blog.
Blogging isn’t on the way out. It’s as vibrant as ever ... as long as the content is giving people what they need, discoverable by those who need it, and readable on the devices they’re using. And to answer the final part of your question, I am absolutely going to continue blogging – I think that for our audience nothing beats it. I’m excited (and nervous!) about incorporating audio and video but the blog will remain my primary channel until further notice! Related resources
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
So you have a great blog post in mind, or a resource you want to create for your core client group. The problem is, one of your proofreading or editing colleagues has already tackled the issue. What do you do?
Lots of content about the same thing
For clarity, let’s think of one piece of content that would be a good contender for a blog post and downloadable PDF cheat sheet. Lots of editors and proofreaders work with academics – students, teachers and researchers – and these clients’ publishers.
Many of those academics will be dab hands at citations and referencing. Their subject’s preferred style manual will be like an old friend. But what about the beginner – like the student submitting to a journal for the first time – or the experienced scholar who’s asked to create references according to an unfamiliar style guide? Some of the best-known academic style manuals are overwhelming. And that’s why people turn to the search engines for solutions – summary cheat sheets that break the guidance down into accessible chunks. I put the phrase ‘APA style summary’ into Google. There were just under 15 million results. Who got there first? Probably not the American Psychological Association. So, if nearly 15 million people have already created this content, including some of your colleagues, why should you? Demonstrating your knowledge – and upping your value
Let’s consider a PhD student. She’s submitting a Master’s dissertation in three months’ time and she has two problems:
First, she heads for a professional editorial directory. From it, she selects ten proofreaders and visits their websites. They all have similar experience and training. All ten proofreaders therefore solve the first problem. Right now, her problem is whom to choose. Next, she heads to Google to solve the second problem. The sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association costs just over £22 in 2017 and stretches to 272 pages. She is up to her neck in student-loan debt as it is … and 272 pages? Surely there’s some free guidance online. Remember those 15 million results I mentioned above? Now she has to sift through just a teeny-tiny bit of that. Let’s go back to her first search. Imagine you’re one of those ten proofreaders, but you can solve both of her problems. If you’re the person who can proofread for her and provide her with an accessible summary of APA, you’ve just achieved the following:
Now her problem is not whom to choose but whether you’re available. That in itself is a good enough reason to get yourself a copy of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (or any other style manual that your target clients use) and get busy creating blog posts and complementary summary resources. That someone else has done it already is not the issue. That you’re solving the problems of people who’ve bothered to visit your website is. It’s likely you’re being compared with others, so demonstrating wider knowledge and being helpful adds value to what you bring to the table and makes you stand out. Multiple problems, and keeping clients on your website
If a potential client is on your website looking for solutions to problems, two things can happen:
Most of our clients don’t have one problem (say, finding an editor). They have a stack of problems. The more you can solve, the longer they’ll stay. I’m told that Google gives brownie points to websites that are lingered on, but even if it didn’t, every minute a potential client is on your website is a minute they’re not on your competitor’s. That’s another minute of engagement, another minute’s worth of trust, another minute where they might visit the Get a Quote or Contact page. Of course, there’s an alternative. Back to our Master’s student. You’re one of the ten proofreaders she selected. She also needs help with APA citation and referencing. Your website tells her all about what a brilliant proofreader you are. You want to help her with APA styling. But you don’t want to create a summary because your lovely colleague Josie Proofreader has already done something similar. Instead, you kindly put in a big fat link to Josie’s website so that your potential client can access this fabulous resource. The client skips over to Josie, sees that she’s also a brilliant proofreader, and promptly forgets the ten she was previously considering (including you). After all, Josie is so helpful, so knowledgeable – her site’s like a one-stop shop. Now her problem is whether Josie is available. There’s nothing wrong with linking to colleagues’ sites (links to relevant websites are good for SEO) but when it comes to the really helpful, substantive, stand-out, problem-solving stuff, that should be on your site – written by you, in your voice, your style, and with your branding on it. Cite your primary sources, of course, (in this case, the APA). We, as editors, know better than anyone the problems of plagiarism and the etiquette of citation. Here’s the guidance I use for creating content (based on the advice of pro white-paper writer Gordon Graham):
Quality content you can’t create. Calling the guest contributor
There are some types of content that I don’t feel comfortable creating. For example, I’m a specialist sentence-level editor so I’m not the best person to give advice on developmental editing conundrums. That doesn’t mean I don’t want that content on my website, though – for all the reasons outlined above.
Guest posts are the solution. Not just any old guests – friends and colleagues who have in-depth, specialist knowledge that I think will be of benefit to my readers. Here are just a few examples:
Their content helps to keep my readers on my website – that’s a win for me. My readers are made aware of my contributors’ expertise – that’s a win for them. And I and my contributors get high-quality inbound/outbound links to our websites – that’s a win for all of us. If your editorial blog is new and you’re looking for some guidance on what to expect from your guests, here are my rules for contributor content:
Every time we host a guest we have the potential to enrich the quality of the content on our own sites. Writing for others, and how to bring it back home
I’ve written for other people too, for example, The Publishing Training Centre, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, BookMachine, Society of English-language professionals in the Netherlands, An American Editor, and several editor colleagues.
Every time we write for others we expand our audience reach via theirs. This may appear to contradict my earlier advice about keeping your own content on your own site. My approach is me-first, me-most. Most of the content on my site has been created by me and demonstrates my skills and my willingness to be helpful. However, curation and reciprocity have their roles – you give a little, you take a little. It’s editorial content backscratching! Repurposing is one way of bringing quality content you’ve published elsewhere back onto your own turf. Just duplicating the text isn't advisable because it can affect your website's rankings in the search engines. Instead, try these three ideas:
Summing up
More resources
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
This post explores how editors and proofreaders can save time with content marketing by repurposing and recycling existing blogs, booklets or other resources.
Why marketing is sometimes a struggle
Here are two reasons why a lot of proofreaders and editors struggle with marketing:
Here’s an option that will solve both problems. I’m talking about something I bet all of you do rather well, and how you can get some efficiencies from it that will stretch your marketing budget (no Lycra required!). What do you do really, really well?
I’ve not yet met one of my peers who couldn’t have a decent conversation with me about editing and proofreading – whether it be a technical or stylistic issue, or a business-development matter. You're all great at it.
And if you can talk about it, you can write about it. And if you can write about it, you can offer that information to colleagues and potential clients. And that’s marketing. So, for those of you sitting in the too-difficult camp, you’ve no excuse! And here’s a tip – solving problems is always good fodder for marketing. If you’ve read Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business, you’ll recall my discussion of Kevin Daum’s Differentiation–Empathy–Solution framework. The empathy part of the framework is where you identify the problems. The solution part of the framework is … well, it’s pretty obvious! If you’ve read How to do Content Marketing, you’ll recall that I bang on non-stop about solving clients’ problems. So write about all the problems you’ve ever been asked to solve and you’ll not go far wrong in terms of engaging with the audience who asked the questions in the first place. Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s look at one way you can save yourself time in the long run … Recycling your content
Some years back, I landed a free ticket for the Summit on Content Marketing via content marketing masters Andrew and Pete.
One hundred speakers in twelve days. No, I didn’t listen to all of the webinars. And I was up until 1 a.m. frequently, just to catch what I could. But it was worth it because one of the sessions was by Gordon Graham, aka That White Paper Guy. In ‘One White Paper, Five Ways: Stretch Your Content Marketing Budget by Repurposing’, Graham demonstrated how after creating one large, in-depth piece of writing (which can be used as a marketing tool in its own right) you can create additional promo pieces from it by slicing and dicing. More on that later. Now, Graham specializes in the white paper – ‘A persuasive essay that uses facts and logic to promote a better way to solve a business problem’ – but we editorial pros can take the basic principles and use them to create our own problem-solving materials too. Let’s put aside the term white paper and think in terms of booklets instead – ebooklets specifically, since we can post them on a blog and pages of a website, send them out to our mailing list or blog subscribers, email them to colleagues or clients who are looking for answers contained in that booklet, link to them in our social media posts, upload them to our membership forums, and so on. What makes a great booklet?
Graham has some wonderful advice on how to approach a white paper, but I think these points are well worth bearing in mind for booklets too. I’m paraphrasing here but it boils down to this:
We’re editors and proofreaders. That’s mostly nuts-and-bolts stuff that editors are paid to look out for, so I’m confident every one of us can do this. Upside-down thinking
There was a time when I tended to think of my writing upside down. I might create several blog articles and then wonder whether, because they’re related (say, by topic), I can merge them into something more substantive. My first two books emerged, in part, from that mode of thinking.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that approach. However, it’s not always the most efficient way of doing things; I tend to limit myself in terms of word count and perhaps omit information that I’d like to explore in more depth but choose not to because I don’t want to overload the reader. And then, when I want to create something more substantive, I have to go back and rewrite large chunks of material to ensure the detail’s there. By switching things round and creating the big piece first, I don’t limit myself or my ideas. I can put everything into the booklet, and then decide how best to slice and dice later. Examples of white papers and booklets
Here are five examples of in-depth pieces – three from the publishing industry, and two from my own stable:
The slice and dice – how you might do it
Choose a topic you're asked about a lot
If clients are asking you about something frequently, creating an in-depth booklet will solve a problem. And when we solve problems we’re more likely to be trusted. There are tens of thousands of people in the world offering editing and proofreading services. For the beginner author, with no prior experience of self-publishing, trying to find help can be terrifying. Is X trustworthy? Does Y know what she’s doing? Is Z worth the money he’s asking? When we show we’re engaged with our clients’ problems, we begin to earn their trust, and they’re more likely to ask us to quote. So you're not only helping my clients, but also helping your business. What do you get out of it? During the process of creating it, you'll reflect on your knowledge, which will strengthen it. Your research may also suggest new ways of thinking, which means you're learning. Why not just refer people to existing articles? Because there’s tons of the stuff. And it's not all yours. And bits and pieces might be daunting for a writer who’s in the very early stages of developing their craft. Giving them something comprehensive will do what we all strive for: being helpful and solving authors’ problems rather than creating more for them! And you want that content on your website. You want your authors to see that you're engaged with their problems rather than just sending them to someone else – someone they’ll think is more helpful than you. How to handle research Use the internet. Use books. Use existing articles. Research like a think tank and then cite like a scholar, so that your sources are attributed fully in a reference section at the end. What about the format? A PDF is a good option – perhaps like this one I did for an audio-book primer. 
Landscape format works well on tablets and laptop screens. But, really, it’s a personal choice.
Create the cover image in Canva using your brand colours and fonts. Then use that to create a 3D picture. How long will it be and how long will it take to write? Who knows? When it comes to marketing and writing, it takes as long as it takes. It’ll be ready when it’s ready. It might take a week, or a month, or more. It depends what else is going on. The thing is, once it’s done, you get to kick back and break out the chopping board! The slice-and-dice-stage Once you have the booklet written and the image produced, use it as it is – a substantive, useful and compelling resource that will help current and future clients. But you can also chop it up. If you have 10 different sections, and each one’s around 1,000 words, you can easily create a series of 10 blog posts, each with its own core theme. That’s a lot of useful content to offer potential clients, and you can stagger the publication in whatever way suits you best. Does that detract from the value of the booklet? I don’t think so. It’s about visibility and choice. Regarding visibility, different people find answers to problems in different ways. So they might see a tweet about this booklet and think, ‘That’s useful. I’ll download that.’ But they might also place a longer question into Google or ChatGPT. Your booklet might not show up because its title doesn’t answer that question. But a blog post that looks specifically at that question might well end up in the results. It’s certainly far more likely to than the booklet title alone. As for choice, the thing to remember is that not everyone can be bothered to root around on a blog for Parts 1 to whatever. Blog posts work really well when everything’s in one place, but once you start asking people to jump here, there and everywhere there’s a risk they’ll switch off. So slice up the content into several posts but give the reader the option of downloading the full booklet at every stage. Graham also suggests using some of the sliced-off articles as guest posts. This is a great idea because, again, you’re putting your resource in front of a new audience that might otherwise not have seen it. Repurpose and relax
Any editor or proofreader can stretch their marketing budget using this recycling method. When we create an in-depth, research-based resource, we help our clients and we teach ourselves. That’s a win–win all round.
As long as it’s dripping with value, you should feel free to carve it up in whatever way suits you. Your clients aren’t homogeneous when it comes to finding solutions to their problems, which means you don’t have to be homogeneous when it comes to delivering them. When you slice and dice, and deliver according to your audience’s preferences, you increase engagement, build trust and expand the life cycle of the story you’re telling. What’s not to like? Resources
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
|
BLOG ALERTS
Sign up for blog alerts!
NEWSLETTER
Sign up for The Editorial Letter.
EDITOR RESOURCES
BOOKS FOR EDITORS AND WRITERS
TRAINING COURSES FOR EDITORS
TESTIMONIALS
'I love the clean impact you've brought to my writing'
Thomas R Weaver 'The voyage through your edits is an intellectual and craft adventure' Dan Flanigan 'I'm a better writer because you edited my book' Rich Leder 'You are by far the best literary editor I've had' Nina Fitzpatrick 'I wholeheartedly recommend her services ... Just don’t hire her when I need her' Jeff Carson 'Sincere thanks for a beautiful and elegant piece of work. First class' JB Turner CATEGORIES
All
ARCHIVES
May 2026
|
RSS Feed
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
© 2011–2026 Louise Harnby