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Proofreading is an essential skill that many talented writers working at digital marketing agencies in Vancouver have, ensuring their client’s messages are communicated clearly, effectively, and professionally. While spelling and grammar tools are valuable as backups for business owners, it’s important for the person writing to thoroughly review their written content before anything is published live for the consumer world to see. Since many business owners are passionate about their products and often busy handling other affairs, they rely on the professional services of Trek Marketing to plan and create their content for them. Needless to say, we do possess clients that are aspiring writers themselves, and since today is National Proofreading Day, we have some tips for those who want to challenge their skills. 

Tip #1: Be sure to read your writing out loud 

Reading written content out loud is extra beneficial in the proofreading process because hearing the words can help you to find missing or misspelled words. Even the best writers will regularly read through their work as a benefit to the writing process. Not only will this technique help you in catching unnecessary phrases, but it will also allow you to create coherence in your writing, find your voice, and become a better reader and writer overall. 

Tip #2: Change the way you look at your writing 

Even the most proficient writers working at digital marketing agencies in Vancouver and beyond should take hold of an opportunity to revamp the way they analyze their writing. In fact, when re-reading the same types of content on the same types of platforms, it’s quite easy to glaze over simple mistakes, especially if proofreading is an essential role in your day-to-day job. As a way to combat this, try printing out the document, or conversely, open it on your desktop. Sometimes even changing the font or colour of your text is enough to visually alter the copy to make you more aware of mistakes that are slipping through. 

Tips #3: Check for a variety of elements when proofreading

Until your writing has been published it’s considered to be in its drafting stage, and there are an assortment of components that you could be looking for, aside from spelling mistakes and grammatical correctness. For example, you could fact-check your work to ensure that the proper names, dates, numbers, and resources were used to create the content. Once all of the above details are verified, you also want to read your work again to ensure that the overall flow of the writing is meaningful, systematic, and comprehensible. By splitting up what you’re looking for each time you proofread, it’s far easier to focus on an individual aspect and catch the little mistakes. 

Tip #4: Ensure that any keywords and phrases you use are correct

Novice writers heavily rely on their thesaurus to write a good piece of content, however, they should also remember to keep the dictionary closeby. Many words in the English language are interchangeable in their meanings, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the best words to use in a particular writing project. This is especially true for longer documents. While you may want to get creative to avoid using the same words over and over, you also want to ensure that these changes don’t affect the meaning of the copy. 

Keep in mind that sometimes consistent use is beneficial, especially if you’re an e-commerce business trying to get noticed on the wide web. Digital marketing agencies in Vancouver focus on a list of key terms as part of their search engine optimization service and create custom content to help your business rank better on popular search engines.

Tip #5: Edit and read your work with a fresh set of eyes

If you’re reading through your content and can’t seem to find any mistakes, chances are that you’re too tired to catch them. We recommend that you take a break between long proofreading rounds and switch between tasks, giving yourself some time to focus on something different and taking advantage of looking at your work again at a later time. Be sure to utilize this time and plan in advance so that you can include these breaks, yet still have enough time to make any changes before your upcoming deadlines. Alternatively, pass your work off to a friend or colleague to allow them to review your content for errors or edits missed. 

Do you have any proofreading tips that you’d like to share with our readers? Drop them in the comment section below.