Today I’m posting a reader question as a discussion starter. It comes from Richard King:
Hey Darren – I blog casually and largely for my own benefit but I read your blog because I occasionally flirt with the idea of “doing things properly” and I think you post some great advice. Recently I’ve come across a problem that I think you and your readers would have some valuable opinions on:
how do you know when you’ve finished a post?
Let me explain. Often, my draft posts are not much more than a few links to something I want to blog about. As I work, I continually add sentences, revise them, move them around, follow new trains of thought and throw other bits away. Gradually the post takes shape until eventually it’s in a fit state to be published. So far so good, but I can’t seem to stop myself spotting ways to improve the text even after it’s been published, pinged round to both my readers’ RSS feeds, and generally indexed by all and sundry.
- Is it good practice to continue to make improvements after I’ve hit the magic publish button?
- If so, should it be obvious to readers that’s what I’ve done?
- What about simply re-wording a sentence or changing the order of content around?
- Should new related ideas always go in new posts, or be added as “updates” at the bottom of existing ones?
- What’s the best strategy for generating traffic, and does that conflict with the best strategy for ensuring quality content?
In short – what’s your advice on post-publish editing?
So that’s Richard’s question (or 5-6 questions). Who has some answers, experiences, suggestions, stories or ideas to share??? Leave them in comments below or if you’d rather write it up as a post on your own blog just leave a link in comments so we can all benefit from your wisdom.
