Hello Guys!

I know it very well that you have moved heaven and earth to get a tiny place in the SERP results. You watch lots of SEO-related videos and keep yourself up-to-date with the latest update from google.

And finally, the victory day comes in your life and you see that your blog is ranking for hundreds of keywords on the top google search results.

Finding yourself in cloud nine, you check your google analytics excitedly.

Unwillingly you scream!

What the fuck……

Why?

Because of the Bounce rate and average time on the page which are 85% and 20 seconds respectively.

You ask yourself; Why on the earth lands on my blog post and leave it without reading it?

Let me answer you; why do people leave your blog post without even going through the middle of the page? Because

If your blog post is unable to grab visitors’ attention it’s simply meaning that you’re not providing ‘hooks’ in the intro paragraph.
your content is hard to read because of using too many complicated words.
maybe your content isn’t skimmable.
perhaps your content lacks a conversational tone.

If your blog post content has any of the above-listed problems, its simple meaning is that you have missed the “proofreading” part of the content creation.

So in this article, I’m going to discuss some points that I’ve learned from the past 5 years of working as a proofreader in an SEO Agency.

9 Tips to do Proof-Reading like a Pro

It took me a couple of months to finalize the complete steps and process for proofreading for an effortless workflow.

Let me share all steps involved in the proof-reading task:

1. Check for Spelling, and Grammatical Mistakes:

The most common mistakes in any blog post content are Spelling and Grammatical. Even a professional writer can make these mistakes.

To avoid such errors, you can install ‘Grammarly Extension’ to check grammatical mistakes at the surface level.

If you want more accuracy then you should go with the premium version of Grammarly. It’ll also help you in

Content Readability
Finding a third person or passive content
To find advanced level grammatical mistakes
Help in paragraph rephrasing.
To find out ‘cliche’ words and suggest synonyms

You can install Grammarly Extension from here.

2. Intro: Hook Your Target Audience Attention

“First impression is the last impression”

I don’t know who said this line. But it fits in most cases. If the intro of the blog post isn’t attractive enough to grab readers’ attention or does not connect with the readers’ problems or desires, you gonna miss potential visitors that could be your customers.

Here are some points you should keep in mind while editing the intro paragraph:

It should generate curiosity. (you can do this by asking a question)
Connect with readers’ problems by talking about problems/desires and the possible efforts or actions that visitors might have taken. (Everyone wants attention, so start talking about the visitors’ problem)
Provide them “the simplest solution in the easiest way”. (People don’t have patience; they need a quick and easy solution for every problem they face)
To gain trust, show your expertise, authority, or experience. (show some data, what results you have gained, years of experience, and your authority in that niche; simply you need to the answer the question; “why the visitor should trust you?”)
Along with the above-listed points, try to keep the focus keyword at the beginning of the paragraph.

3. Content Readability Check:

You’re writing the content for your target audiences, not for you. You need to impress them not yourself. So while proofreading, make sure your blog content is easy to read, and understandable.

Checklist:

Blog content should not have any complicated words.
Avoid lines with ambiguous meanings.
Avoid meaningless lines or paragraphs.
Break the long-form of text content into 3 to 4 line paragraphs.
Change passive voice to active voice.
Avoid long-form of sentences.
Use proper signs and text formate (!, ” “, bold, italic)

4. Maintain Proper Blog Content Flow:

Try to connect the next paragraph at the ending of the current paragraph. Mention the next heading at the ending of the paragraphs. (setting a pitch for the next headline)

5. Your Blog Content Should be Skimmable:

“Nobody is going to read every line of your blog post.”

Yes, it’s the truth.

Of course! a bitter one.

So what you can do?

Make your blog post skimmable and make sure that even if a person reads your article with a bird’s eye view he or she can absorb what you want to deliver by the blog post.

Checklist:

Break the Blog Content into Suitable Paragraphs, Headings, Subheadings, a number of steps, and Bullet Points.
Keep sentences short.
Highlight important data, research, definitions, and valuable information or other important points.