These last few posts have been modeling the way to write better ezines and articles for the Web, faster, including how to craft good headlines.

But the final step in writing better is often skipped entirely: reread and edit your writing before you publish. In today’s rapid working environments, we are rushed to produce quantity with little attention to quality. Many bloggers insist on claiming their right to be spontaneous and never mind the typos.

If you are a professional, your writing on the web is your sales person. You wouldn’t send out sales staff without shoes and a clean shirt; why would you want to leave your writing with errors and bad grammar?

This is important for the impression you make on readers who may want to hire you. Not only do you want to re-read your stuff for errors, but also clarity from the reader’s perspective.

Here’s a great editing tip from Publication Coach Daphne Gray-Grant:

"…when we edit our own writing, we need to do more than make the text flow more smoothly, take out unnecessary words and fix grammar and spelling mistakes. We also need to ask ourselves the following questions:

-Who is going to read this?

-What do I want them to do?

-What might they misunderstand or find confusing or unbelievable (and how can I clear up that problem?)

For more Power Writing tips, subscribe to her ezine.

Here’s a great way to get ideas for compelling headlines for your articles, ezines, blogs and other web copy, and it comes from Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound in her latest ezine.

The article she writes is titled "Can Your Purse Make You Sick?" If you’re a girl, you probably want to know the answer to this strange question. But there’s a lesson here for everyone. Here’s her tip on writing great headlines:

"That’s called a formula headline, and it’s the kind of headline you often see on the covers of big magazines.

"That got me thinking. Many Publicity Hounds can use a variation of that same headline in their own press releases, blogs, ezines, articles, columns, letters to the editors or even direct-mail pieces. A health expert could write an article titled "Do Video Games Make Your Kids Sick?" A chiropractor could write one titled "Does Your Office Chair Make You Sick?"

"Here’s how to find formula headlines and turn them into your own.

Stand in front of a magazine rack with a notebook and a pen. Or visit Magazines.com at http://www.Magazines.com  Then click on a few magazine covers. Look for headlines that catch your attention. Can you remove a word or two and substitute your own words to conform to your own topic?"

Great tip, Joan, thanks. If you want more great tips from Joan, send a blank email to subscribe to her Publicity Hound ezine here.

Crafting the headline for an article you publish is probably more important than writing the actual article. I say probably, but many professional copywriters who make lotsa money doing this will tell you it is THE most important task.

If your headline is ho-hum nobody will read what you have to say. If your headline is engaging and compelling, people will get drawn into reading your article like Ulysses to the Sirens. They won’t be able to resist it.

Of course, you still need good content in the body of the article. Otherwise readers will be mad they spent the time reading only to come up empty.

Brian Clark of Copyblogger gives some great tips on this. Recently he wrote this in a post called 7 Reasons Why List Posts Will Always Work. Here’s an excerpt:

"Any headline that lists a number of reasons, secrets, types, or ways will work because, once again, it makes a very specific promise of what’s in store for the reader. A nice quantifiable return on attention invested goes a long way toward prompting action, and as long as you deliver with quality content, you’ll have a satisfied reader."

"Plus, these type of posts and articles are perfect for building your authority and demonstrating a mastery of your area of expertise. If you’re business blogging, that’s key."

He then goes on to list 7 classic “list” headlines that you can remix on your blog when you’re looking to boost readership:

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