CONTENT OPTIMIZATION STEPS TO TAKE AFTER CREATING THE FIRST DRAFT

So, you’ve just finished creating your first draft but aren’t sure what possible changes should be made before you publish it online? Don’t worry, allow us to help you with that. 

First, go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back. You’ve done the hard part. Now, there are some simple steps you have to follow to finalize the draft. Keep in mind the controversial saying of Ernest Hemingway that goes like this: “Write drunk, edit sober.”

Now that you have put all your basic ideas in the content, it’s time to optimize it for publishing. In this article, we are going to provide you with simple yet powerful steps you have to take to optimize your first draft. Let’s begin.

Step – 1: Take a Thorough Overview:

Now that the draft is created, take some time. Have a coffee. Now, take a thorough overview of the whole content. You have to examine the content to identify the changes that are to be made.

These changes could include the addition of new ideas, removal of unnecessary content, etc. This process essentially involves looking at the content from a wider angle before making specific modifications.

Step 2: Analyze the Clarity and Readability of Your Content:

The first draft is more like a conversation you have with yourself or with the reader. You just put in whatever comes to your mind related to the main idea. When you write in this style, the wording you use to explain ideas is understandable to you, but not the general audience.

That is why it is important that you analyze the clarity and readability of your draft before you finalize it for publishing. Spot the difficult words and phrases that do not explain your ideas with full clarity. Change these words with the easier ones. It will enhance the content’s readability.

If you are unable to spot these changes, take the help of your friends, family, colleagues, or any other person you know. This will enable you to analyze if other people can understand your writing or not. Simply take their suggestions and make changes accordingly. 

Step 3: Check for Grammatical and Spelling Mistakes:

Now that you have fixed the clarity and readability of your draft, it’s time to make it grammatically error-free. You might have made grammatical and spelling errors in the process of creating your draft. 

Now, you have to remove them.

That’s an easy task to perform. All you have to do is read the content thoroughly and spot the errors. Once done, eliminate these errors.

To perform this step more conveniently, you can take the help of online software. There are many grammar and spelling checking facilities available online that can help you identify and eradicate the grammatical and spelling mistakes present in your content.

Step 4: Check the Structure of Your Draft:

A good structure is an important element of an optimized piece of content. After you have created your first draft and checked the factors explained in the points above, it’s time to check if the structure of the draft is according to the requirements or not.

 

You have to make sure that:

• Proper headers are used in the content.
• The paragraphs are concise.
• The flow of the sentences and paragraphs is in place.

If you find anything missing or not done right, make the essential changes.

Step 5: Check for Plagiarism:

Last but not least, you have to check for plagiarism in your draft before you decide to publish it. Plagiarism is a great concern when it comes to publishing content online. If you publish plagiarized content, you can get into serious trouble.

That is because copying someone else’s published content is wrong ethically. It is also a legal concern in most of the regions of the world.

That’s the reason why you have to make sure that the draft you are about to finalize is plagiarism-free.

Your content may be originally written and still get plagiarized. This type of plagiarism is known as accidental or unintentional plagiarism. But how can you know if your content is plagiarized or not? It’s simple. You take the help of an online tool. 

That is because it is impossible for a normal human being to check millions of blogs and other types of content and see if their content matches with any or not. Many online tools can do that for you in a matter of minutes. They allow you to conduct a free plagiarism check on your content and identify the part that is (or looks) copied.

Once identified, it becomes easier for you to either remove those parts or simply change their structure to avoid getting penalized. 

Conclusion:

That pretty much sums it up. In the writing process, a good writer often creates a draft first and edits the details later before publishing his content. But what are these essential changes that these writers make in their first draft? More importantly, how can you similarly optimize your content? 

That’s what we have tried to explain in the information given above. We have explained 5 of the most important steps that you have to take to finalize the draft of your content. These changes will help you make the quality of your content better, optimize it for the Internet, and make it unique.