When you are vying for the attention of the 409 million people consuming 20 billion-plus blog pages monthly, you need to consistently produce content that grabs your audience’s attention and keeps them on the page. However, keeping up with a steady content production stream while maintaining high writing standards isn’t easy.
Your team might spend hours researching your audience, competitors, topics, and keywords, not to mention the time it takes to craft a blog post, ebook, or white paper. While efficiency is critical in content production, though, publishing poorly written content in the name of speed will likely only result in a high bounce rate and lost prospects and customers.
We understand the constant tension you experience between quality and efficiency, but you don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. Explore the tools and strategies you can use to create impeccably written content without losing efficiency.
Source: Hubspot
Establish a Consistent Style
If you don’t yet have a content strategy, we recommend creating one immediately. A significant element of a fully fleshed strategy is your editorial guidelines, including content formatting choices.
No matter your writers’ skill level, you need a consistent grammar style. Despite all the writing rules we learned throughout school, nuances and acceptable variations exist.
Do you prefer the Oxford comma? Is it OK to begin a sentence with a conjunction?
Your chosen grammar style should reflect your brand’s personality and your audience. It might be easiest to go with an established style, such as the Associated Press or Chicago Manual, and then determine whether there are any exceptions you prefer to use.
The difference between using a serial comma or not may seem trivial. However, readers pick up on inconsistencies, which can reflect poorly on your brand.
Implement a Style Guide
After you figure out your writing style, hammer out a style guide so that your creatives know the expectations. Your style guide provides a framework for content tone, voice, structure, grammar, syntax, and other elements to guide your team through content creation.
When you create the framework, state which style guidelines you have adopted and list exceptions to the rules. Divvy’s content interface lets you attach your style guide to the asset, so your team can easily access it during the writing process.
Employ Editing Software
Establishing standards and implementing a style guide provide the foundation for creating error-free content. They ensure a consistent approach to textual content so readers have a similar experience each time they engage with your team’s writing.
However, setting up your writing rules doesn’t inherently make for flawless writing, even when you attach a style guide to every asset your team produces. The best writers still make mistakes.
Maintaining the often-grueling pace of a content marketer often leads to more errors. Editing takes time, whether your writers edit their own work or you have dedicated editors who review each piece.
Editing software simplifies the creation and editing process. There are several good options to choose from.
Google Docs Editor
Google Docs is a great collaboration tool, allowing multiple users to access and alter an asset. Anyone with access can see the document, and changes occur in real time.
At the same time, you have control over permissions and determine who has viewing only or editing privileges. Google Docs contains built-in writing tools, including a grammar and spelling checker and suggestions.
Another benefit to Google Docs is how easy it is for your team to collaborate. Team members can insert comments to offer suggestions or corrections. If a specific individual needs to respond, the software allows commenters to assign the task to one person, sending that team member an email alerting them to the comment.
Anyone with a Google account can use these tools, but you lose the benefits if your team has yet one more external tool to use and keep track of. It’s a good thing Divvy integrates with Google Docs, allowing you to streamline your writing tools into the rest of your content operations.
Grammarly
Our platform also integrates with another helpful tool for writing flawless content: Grammarly. This company offers both free and paid writing software, though the paid versions are much more powerful when your goal is error-free content.
Grammarly for businesses uses artificial intelligence to provide in-text writing suggestions for:
- Grammar
- Spelling
- Punctuation
- Tone
- Clarity
- Inclusivity
The software also allows you to incorporate your style guide and provides relevant writing suggestions based on its parameters.
Hemingway Editor
The Hemingway Editor is another useful online tool. The site now also offers a desktop app.
Hemingway provides feedback on the number of adverbs, instances of passive voice, and readability. It’ll also tell you what grade level your writing is, so you’ll instantly know whether your writing is too simple, too complex, or just right for your audience. Though the standard recommendation is to aim for a 7th-9th grade reading level, your content should meet your audience where they are.
A unique element of this tool is that it provides color-coded feedback, so writers know immediately what kind of issues their writing has and where the errors occur.
On the downside, they must hop on a separate app or site to use it, and Hemingway doesn’t offer as many grammar suggestions as Grammarly does.
Writer
Though Writer’s primary feature is its generative AI capabilities, it also contains in-text coaching tools to aid writers in crafting error-free content. It offers suggestions similar to Grammarly and allows you to incorporate your style guide.
Writer further boosts your team’s production capacity when using it to help generate titles and outlines. Our platform integrates with Writer, so you can access this powerful tool from your Divvy account.
Enlist Editors and Proofreaders
Writing and editing tools can significantly reduce the time it takes your creatives to craft stellar content. However, it’s important to remember that these tools aren’t infallible. It always helps to run your content by your human editors and proofreaders to catch any missed errors.
Streamline the Content Production Process
The more efficient your content production process, the easier it is for your team to use the tools that will help them craft flawless content. DivvyHQ provides a central hub for your content operations, simplifying the creation process. Request a demo today to learn how we help you say goodbye to content chaos.
