How to Use Copyediting Skills to Improve Your Website Writing
Posted on November 7, 2011 by Pure Ink | Leave a comment
Wikipedia defines copyediting as “the work that an editor does to improve the formatting, style, and accuracy of text. Unlike general editing, copyediting often does not involve changing the substance of the text.” The process of copyediting doesn’t begin until there is copy to edit, so once you’ve crafted your website copywriting you can begin the editing process.
To start your copyediting process, read through your website copywriting for surface errors in spelling. Don’t trust your spell checker as this won’t pick up words which have been used in error such as ‘advice’ and ‘advise’ or ‘write’ and ‘right’. When you write your copy you’ll probably write quickly to get all your ideas down and while this is a good way to get the job done, it can mean that the sentence structure is not always the best it can be. As the quote above says, copyediting is not so much about completely rewriting the text but more about tweaking the content and a lot of this work is to improve the sentence structure. Read your copywriting out loud to see how well the sentences flow. The most important thing to look out for is your sentence length as long sentences will bore website visitors.
The next stage of the copyediting process is to create headings and paragraphs (if you’ve not already done so) within your copy to make it easier for your website visitors to read. Bullet points, short paragraphs and plenty of headings and sub headings keep people interested for longer. If you can include keywords during this copyediting process then you’re well on your way to creating a polished piece of website copywriting.
Copyediting also includes checking that the content is factually correct. This part of the copyediting process is particularly important when writing news articles as you’ll need to verify the information in your story. Be careful when quoting other sources such as survey results for example and make sure that they are from a legitimate source, that they are up to date and that you check the copyright on any text you reproduce.
Copyediting is the final polish of any website copywriting and when done properly, you can ensure that you won’t receive any comments from colleagues, customers or your competitors highlighting errors in your copy. To find out more about copyediting, contact the website copywriting experts at Pure Ink.
Posted in Copyediting Copywriting