Web Writing Crash Course: 5. Review Your Post

Welcome back to the Web Writing Crash Course series! At this point, you may be wondering: “I have applied all the tips, but how can I be sure that my web post is scannable, accessible, and SEO-friendly enough?”

We heard you, and we have gathered some (more) tips and tools to help you review your post before they go live!

If you haven’t checked out the last 4 instalments of our Web Writing Crash Course series, make sure to do so:

• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: Language
• Part 3: Structure
• Part 4: Formatting

Reviewing Tip #1: Get a proofreader

As the author, it is easy to have biases in your writing, which cause you to overlook errors. Therefore, it is helpful to ask someone to proofread your post and provide a second perspective. This person can be your co-worker, friend, family, or someone in the demographic that you are writing for. Without having prior knowledge of the post, the proofreader can give you the audience’s perspective.

For example, if your post is about guides for students, ask a student to proofread it! If they find a part of your post confusing, there will likely be other students who have the same experience, and that means you should perhaps revise that part.

Reviewing Tip #2: Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that can tell you how readable your web content is. To find your page’s readability score, simply open the page editor screen and scroll down to the “Yoast SEO” module.

Yoast SEO can evaluate how easy it is to read your content, your paragraph and sentence length, your use of passive versus active voice, and so on, and rank your page as “Needs Improvement”, “OK” or “Good”. A great tool to keep your web content succinct and accessible!

Reviewing Tip #3: Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor (https://hemingwayapp.com/) is a free app that reviews your text, rates its readability, and highlights areas that can be improved. Simply paste your text into the text editor field and toggle on “Edit” mode, and Hemingway Editor will review your writing for you!

Reviewing Tip #4: Slick Write

Similar to Hemingway Editor, Slick Write (https://www.slickwrite.com/#!home) is also an app that reviews your text and provides suggestions to improve your writing. Just click on “Start writing”, and as the call-to-action suggests, start writing!

And that concludes our Web Writing Crash Course series. We hope that with the tips that we provided, you can now create scannable, accessible and searchable web content. Have fun writing!