Have you thought about publishing your blog posts first, and then going back and editing them later?
Although we typically think to edit first, there are benefits to simply writing and publishing a bunch now, and then editing them after they’ve already been published.
So, which should you do, and what are the benefits of each strategy?
In this article, I’ll cover both viewpoints in detail!
The Benefit Of Publishing First
The biggest benefit of simply publishing your articles as you finish writing them, is that you’re able to produce content more quickly.
Writing and editing both use different parts of the brain, and you’ll notice that you lose out on speed by constantly switching between them.
It is more efficient to write a bunch at once, and then edit all of it afterwards, than it is to constantly switch back and forth.
This is why teachers teach students to simply focus on getting words out on paper, then to go back and revise them later. It’s called a first draft for a reason – it’s going to be changed later.
If you choose to publish before editing, you’ll also benefit from the articles getting discovered, crawled and indexed by Google more quickly, which may mean that you start seeing traffic to those articles even quicker.
You aren’t necessarily punished by going back and editing after publishing, so this can be a viable strategy if it’s easiest for you to just write a bunch quickly.
The Benefits Of Editing First
Now, let’s look over the case for editing your content thoroughly prior to publishing.
Although it is slower, there are numerous benefits to taking an edit-first approach to publishing.
The first and perhaps the most important reason, is that it gives your users a better impression of you.
Content that is full of spelling or grammar mistakes not only appears sloppy, but comes across as less trustworthy. This may directly impact conversions if you are using your blog to try and push people towards something else, such as a product, service, or email opt-in box.
As a professional publisher, it’s expected that your spelling and grammar be on point, and it reflects poorly on you if your content suffers from basic mistakes like this.
However, there is another important reason as well.
According to Search Engine Journal, spelling and grammar do not appear to be direct ranking factors in Google. However, sites with spelling and grammar issues are highlighted in Google’s quality rater guidelines, which suggests that they may be considered if your site is manually reviewed by someone from Google’s team.
Therefore, you directly benefit in a multitude of ways by ensuring your content is well-edited prior to publishing – especially if you believe it will get seen before you would have a chance to edit it.
What Do I Recommend?
Personally, I do recommend editing your content prior to publishing it.
This doesn’t mean that you need to edit as soon as you finish writing. For example, you could write out 5 posts at once, save them as drafts, and then go back and edit all 5 at once before publishing.
At the very least, you should plug your piece into tools like Grammarly or ProWritingAid and do a quick check to see what can be edited. This only takes a few moments, and these tools will catch the vast majority of spelling and grammar errors.
If you really don’t like editing (which I totally understand), you can always outsource the editing to someone else for a fairly cheap price.
Outsourcing editing is cheaper than outsourcing the writing of the piece itself, so it could be a good way to help you increase your content production, while still maintaining the professional quality that your readers have come to expect.
If you are interested in learning more about how to outsource, I highly recommend checking out my course on outsourcing to the Philippines. While it’s more geared for hiring full or part-time positions, there is still a lot you can learn even for smaller projects.
Conclusion
There are pros and cons to publishing first, or taking the time to edit prior to publishing.
For most people however, time spent editing is well worth it, as it ultimately leads to higher content quality.
I’m curious – which approach do you take, and why? I’d love to hear your rationale behind your decision.
Wishing you success with your blog,
– James McAllister