Always Check Your Own Work

 

Today I was reading a post by a well known Blogger who utilized the (…more) feature because it was a fairly long (and as always good) post.  There was a slight problem with the presentation which would go unnoticed by anyone who started reading on the Front page and went on the read the rest of the entry.

What I saw in going to the page directly for reference was in the layout, one of his advertisements was overwriting the first paragraph of the post.  If someone had clicked directly to the article from a search query, link or an RSS feed, they would be missing an improtant part of the entry, the first paragraph.

I’m sure it was an oversight that could have been easily avoided  by checking the finished product.  Every way an entry can be viewed should be checked, front page, full (single) page and if possible RSS.  I have written before about the need for a writer to edit themselves.  This is another of the small errors that could easily cause a newcomer to click away rather than stay to finish reading the full article.

It’s not that I haven’t made the same type of mistakes, I have.  Even when you set up your blog or webpage the way you want it, sometimes the presentation can be changed by a small addition such as a picture or graph that can distort your original design.

So my advice is to check and double check your work before publishing a post.  It’s better you find it before your readers notice and click away.

 

Yes, I did leave a comment on his blog to alert him to the problem, in case you were wondering.