Why It’s Okay To Publish An Imperfect Blog Post

If you are a blogger, you will naturally want to do a good job and write good blog posts. People are going to read what you are writing, so you want to be putting out good quality content to the best of your ability. But how good is good enough?

I think it’s important not to take your efforts too far and become a perfectionist about your blog. In my opinion, not every blog post has to be ‘perfect’, amazing or feel like it is up there with your best writing. I am going to explain some reasons why I think it’s okay to publish an imperfect blog post.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase something through my link, I will earn a small commission. This does not affect the price you pay for the item. I only advertise products that I have used myself and would genuinely recommend.

Why It’s Okay To Publish An Imperfect Blog Post

1. Perfection is impossible

There is no such thing as a perfect blog post because there is always some way that a post could be improved. Even with the best writers or bloggers, some of their work is going to be better than others. Think of your favourite author – do you think some of their books are better than others? Are there aspects of their writing or storylines that could be improved? I’d predict that the answer is yes! But just because a book or a blog post is not perfect, that doesn’t mean it is bad.

2. Your writing skills are always improving

Your first posts are inevitably not going to be as good as your later ones. This is because the more you blog, the more your skills will improve and you’ll become a better writer. But if you hadn’t written your first, ‘bad’ posts, you never would have developed your skills and progressed to the quality of writing you are producing now. Imperfect blog posts are part of the learning process and they are a record of your progress over time. Your current ‘good posts’ may later become your ‘bad posts’ as you get even better at writing.

Recommended e-book: A Blogger’s Best Friend by LoveKyra

3. Experimentation is part of the learning process

As you develop your writing skills, it’s good to try out different writing styles, post types and topics. Some of these will suit you better than others, but you won’t know until you try. If you tried something new or daring, that is an achievement in itself. You might not be totally happy with the result but that doesn’t mean the post can’t still be valuable, interesting or useful to someone who reads it.

4. If you try your best, that’s good enough

As long as you have tried your best with a post, that’s good enough. Even if you don’t think the post is that great, but you can’t think of how to improve it, just press publish. You don’t have to spend hours trying to improve and perfect it. I’m not telling you to be sloppy and not make an effort – I would recommend proofreading the post and checking your grammar, but in terms of the content itself, just do the best you can.

Related post: My 15-Step Blog Post Checklist

5. Perfectionism is time consuming

Trying to make your posts perfect will use up valuable time that you could be spending in other areas, such as writing more blog posts. Spending hours tweaking minor details to perfect the post is a waste of time. In the long run, your blog and your writing will improve more if you make your posts ‘good enough’ rather than ‘perfect’ and thus have time to write more posts.

6. Perfectionism is likely to cause burnout

We are all imperfect human beings by nature. If you try and make your blog posts perfect, you will be putting a lot of pressure on yourself. If blogging feels like too much hard work and pressure from trying to make everything perfect, you are more likely to burnout. You may also find it harder to motivate yourself to write because it isn’t so enjoyable. Then you might stop writing blog posts altogether. It’s better to publish imperfect blog posts and keep the momentum going!

Have you already experienced burnout, or are you in a blogging slump? This e-book, Overcoming The Blogging Slump by Sophia Patel might help you get back on track!

7. Other people might like the post

It’s only your opinion that the post is bad – it’s not a fact. Other people might think it’s good! You might unexpectedly get loads of views and engagement on a post you weren’t sure about. This has happened to me before. When this happens, you learn more about your audience and what topics and styles they prefer. You might choose to write more similar posts in the future. If you’d never published the post, you would never have known that it would be so popular!

8. Imperfection has character

I can think of plenty of times when I have read someone else’s imperfect blog post and really enjoyed it. I’ve read some posts that are not very well written, and even full of grammatical errors, but they had interesting content and the blogger’s personality shone through, which made it a good read!

Think of when a friend messages you to tell you about something funny or interesting that has happened to them. It’s not going to be a polished piece of writing, but you will enjoy reading it because it is interesting and entertaining. Think of your blog as an outlet for your personality and a place to tell your stories.

Related post: How To Write Original Blog Posts

9. You can go back and improve it later on

Remember that you can always go back and improve your old blog posts later on. You might be able to make an imperfect blog post better in a few months or years when your writing skills have improved more. When you first press publish, that doesn’t have to be final, so don’t put so much pressure on yourself to get it ‘perfect’ the first time.

If you really don’t like the post later on and feel it is beyond improving, you can always delete it or completely rewrite it into a new post. But at least you got something out onto your blog that was your best work at the time.

10. If you miss things, you can make a ‘Part 2’

Sometimes when I’m writing a post, I worry that I have missed something or that there is more I could write that I haven’t thought of yet. I’m learning to accept that it is okay if I do miss something. You don’t have to think of every possible thing that could go in the post! In the future, you could always make a Part 2 where you can share the extra ideas you have thought of. If your original post is too thorough, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to make a Part 2 which is more content for your blog.

Blog posts really don’t have to be perfect!

The time and effort it would take to get your blog posts to ‘ultimate perfection’ would be counterproductive in so many ways. It’s better to enjoy putting out ‘good enough’ content rather than stress about putting out ‘perfect’ content and end up burning out. As long as you try your best and enjoy the process of writing, those are the most important things!

So, the next time you are debating whether to press publish or to delete a post because you don’t think it is good enough, I encourage you to go for it and press publish!

Do you tend to be a perfectionist with your blog posts? Or are you happy to settle for ‘good enough’? Let me know in the comments!