Of course, when you initially publish an article, you want it to be as perfect as possible. You edit and proofread it profusely, looking intently for any possible mistakes or errors and swiftly correcting the ones that you find. But we’re only human. We can’t always catch every single mistake on our work. As some have rightfully said, “There is always room for improvement,” so let’s take a look at some of the reasons why we should love being allowed to edit our articles:
1. Fix grammatical errors and mistakes
If you take a look at some of your older articles, you might notice some grammatical, spelling or other such mistakes, which you might have missed the last time you proofread and edited it. In this case, you’d naturally want to fix these errors.2. Interlink related articles
If you write articles on different aspects of the same topic, then you’d want to interlink them, so those who are interested can find and read these related posts. For example, I write a lot about Tumblr (microblogging platform and social networking site) and the Harry Potter series (fantasy books about magic and wizards written by J.K. Rowling), so I interlink the related posts together. If we weren’t allowed to edit our articles, then how can we add these helpful, useful and relevant URL links?3. SEO purposes
You can also choose to edit your old articles for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes. For example, when the WordPress SEO by Yoast feature was added to Daily Two Cents and Writedge (writing sites that used to pay per view, but have since changed their payment model, unfortunatelySo, I started to go back to those old posts to make use of this plugin. I added the Focus Keyword and Meta Description and addressed any problems mentioned in the Page Analysis tab. If we weren’t allowed to edit, then we would only have been able to use the WordPress SEO by Yoast on our newer articles.
4. Readability purposes
Make your articles more readable by adding spaces between paragraphs and breaking up huge blocks of text. You can also choose to add headers or headings to your posts, so those who want to skim-read can easily do so. While huge blocks of text can turn off potential readers, the same can happen if your post has way too many spaces.This is why it’s important to find the perfect balance to ensure that your article is easy to read while not hurting anyone’s eyes. Being able to edit your posts will allow you to add or remove headings, spaces and paragraphs depending on what is needed.
5. Change titles
Usually, the first thing that a potential reader will see when they come across your article will be its title. If the title catches their eye and piques their curiosity, then they might be inclined to check it out and read it. For this reason, it’s important to have great, interesting and appealing titles. If your titles are boring or uninteresting, then who would want to read them?Imagine if you can’t edit your article titles. You’ll be forced to be stuck with a lousy title or with one that you don’t like. And you can’t do anything about this unless you delete and republish your post (this time with the title that you want). You can also choose to publish it elsewhere (read: on a site which actually allows you to edit and improve your writing or your very own blog where you have complete control over your content).
6. Add media
If your article consists of nothing more than text and more text, it might come across as boring to some readers especially if said post is really quite long. Adding media like polls, videos, pictures and more can help add color to your posts. These things can encourage interaction and participation from your potential visitors and readers. These can also help make your article seem more interesting and appealing.Who doesn’t love editing their articles?
Don’t you just love being able to edit your old articles for all these reasons? Imagine not being allowed to edit anything at all because the site where you published your articles has disabled the editing option, forbidding you from making improvements and changes to your posts. What a horrible thought, right?This is why you can really appreciate writing sites like Writedge, Daily Two Cents and HubPages (even Persona Paper lets you edit your posts unless it’s a poll post in which case you’re out of luck) since they freely let you use the edit button anytime or whenever you want to.
*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki based on the image by kropekk_pl (Public Domain) from Pixabay
- Image is meant to symbolize someone editing their articles by using the laptop
- YouTube video features the writing dashboard on Writedge and Daily Two Cents; this is where you can edit your articles
