Tools to Quickly and Easily Make Sure Your Blog Content Measures Up to Your Audience’s Expectations…and Doesn’t Make You Look Like an Ass

I just finished helping my youngest daughter with her English paper. She’s in the 8th grade and taking an Honors English class (definitely didn’t get it from me).

Her teacher is a bit of a formatting Nazi.

My daughter’s first rendition of her paper was sent back because she was using 1.5 line spacing and not double spaced.

She was also missing the header section and the font was slightly wrong.

We diligently worked through the edits and made sure everything was super tight.

She came home today and the teacher had sent it back again because the header wasn’t double spaced too.

Who does that? A double-spaced header? WTF!?

While the formatting requirements are a bit extreme, I secretly love it.

I love the fact she’s so anal that she’s checking the spacing, the fonts, and all the other nitpicking nuggets.

Even better, it’s quietly instilling a sense of pride in work and an attention to detail that I hope my daughter picks up.

The quality of work you produce directly represents you as a person and the value you bring to your reader.

If you put out shit, your readers will see it for what it is and move on. Quickly.

This quasi-life lesson applies to your blogging as well.

So, in the spirit of making sure you don’t produce shit, here are a few tools to implement to help you check yo’self before you wreck yo’self.

Evaluate Your Blog Post Header to Make Sure it Doesn’t Suck

Let’s start with the header. That makes sense right?

Some people struggle to come up with quality headlines and it really is an art. In fact, copywriters make a living off of putting out epic headlines.

Most of us stink at generating headlines. It’s true.

But the cruel irony is that the headline is what your readers see first and what ultimately determines if they click on your link.

Brutal, right?

To help you rock your headlines I recommend two quick and easy methods.

One is a killer tip from the folks over at Copyblogger which I’ve talked about previously.

Head over to a popular website like Cosmopolitan or Details for men and steal some of theirs!

Let me show you how it can be done. I’m going to head over to Cosmo as I’m writing this and grab the first headline that pops up.

I’m going to head over to Cosmo as I’m writing this and grab the first headline that pops up.

Here is what I found.

Great.

Watch me work…

• “It’s Time to Talk About What SEO Has to Do With Your Food Blog“
• “It’s Time to Talk About What Your Kids Have to Do With Your Business Blog“
• “It’s Time to Talk About What Snapchat Has to Do With Your Biology Blog“

You get the idea.

Here is another resource to check out. Especially if you feel you got the headline game down pat.

CoSchedule has a headline analyzer you can use for your proposed headline.

Since I like to research and provide the details to you, here is what I got when I typed in a potential headline for this blog post, “Fix Your Shit”, in all of its glory.

Kind of cool seeing how they analyze the headline.

Here are some of the highlights of my particular headline choice:

• Power words – “shit”
• I need to increase my emotional words
• The keyword is “shit”
• And my headline shows a strong negative sentiment

Hmmm, glad I decided to change it up.

Fix Your Images So Your Blog Post Doesn’t Look Like a Child Put it Together

Actually, a child probably is more adept with image editing than a lot of bloggers.

When you get ready to post, make sure you have your images set to the right dimensions for your website and for social sharing.

I use Canva for most of my image editing needs. It makes it super easy to select the type of image size you want and then you are golden from that point.

I usually create a blog post image using the Facebook Post template so it renders nicely in Facebook when I share it later.

I’m all about saving time when I can and you should be too!

I then create a completely different image for Pinterest given the more vertical display on that platform.

Whatever method you choose for posting your blog post images, along with your marketing and branding, just make sure the images are proportionate and look professional.

Canva can get it done for you.

Spellcheck is Old School, Upgrade Your Grammar Game and Lay Down English Your High School Teacher Would Fawn Over

…that includes my daughter’s formatting Nazi teacher.

Look, you’ve spent a good amount of time crafting content and honing the value you are about to publish to your community, don’t screw it up by having spelling and grammar errors all over the place.

You’ll look like an amateur or someone that just doesn’t give a damn.

Take pride in your work and make sure you look over everything….wait, this is the 21st century. There HAS to be a tool for that, right?

Yes!

Unequivocally yes!

That tool, my dear friend, is Grammarly.com.

The sweetest thing about Grammarly is it has a Chrome extension that sits there and monitors you as you type any and everywhere.

That means on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, WordPress, etc. It’s awesome.

If you struggle with writing proper English or, at least, coherent English, get the Grammarly Chrome extension and impress your friends!

This is one of the tools that can be used as you are working and that is what makes it stand out among the rest.

It’s like Microsoft spellchecker on steroids, or HGH for you Peyton Manning fans.

Wrapping It Up

The good news with today’s technology is you typically don’t have to spend a lot of time honing your work for mass consumption.

Simply implement some of the tools I’ve provided and start to put higher quality out for your audience.

Evaluate your headline, format your visual content, and use Grammarly to make sure you are speaking clearly and concisely.

Any advantage you can find in your blogging journey is well worth it.

What tool do you use that runs behind the scenes (for the most part) and allows you to be more efficient and effective with your messaging?

Sound off in the comments below!