How Errors and Typos Harm Your Digital Marketing Efforts
While we all may make mistakes from time to time and while some people are better at spelling and grammar than others, the fact is that mistakes on your business website and social media accounts are detrimental to your business. The majority of readers will steer clear of your site when they encounter those seemingly innocuous errors. That’s right. When it comes to typos, people who may be terrible with spelling and grammar themselves are going to judge YOU harshly for not being a spelling and grammar perfectionist.
The Lights Go On…and It’s Not Pleasant
Margaret Atwood once likened a typo to having the lights suddenly go on in a darkened theatre. In other words, you are immersed in a story or an idea and engaged with what you are reading. All of a sudden you encounter a typo and it’s like the whole environment you are invested in and focusing on is ripped away. The negative is two-fold in that not only is that reader torn from the engaging piece of content, but a more pernicious fallout is that the reader will be far less likely to respect your work and trust your business in the future. Indeed, typos can sabotage your reputation, and undermine you with the very people you are trying to connect with and turn into customers.
It Can Happen to Anyone, Especially When Writing About What You Know Best
Often typos occur because you know your topic so well. If your work is like your home, you know it inside and out. This is when typos are bound to rear their ugly heads, as you may be more focused on your ideas, rather than the minutiae of spelling. This is also why your readers will pick up on typos that you missed: they are seeing the work for the first time, and these words and ideas are (usually) new to them.
The Solutions are Easy
If you are not a spelling or grammar nerd, there are a number of things you can do to help yourself. Spell checking tools can miss many nuances of writing, but they do catch many errors. Slow and meticulous copyediting will save you from the drama of cleaning up the embarrassing mess that errors cause. After you have checked your work once, twice, and three times, print out the piece and edit by hand. After that, pass it over to a couple of trusted colleagues to read through. And if they don’t exist, or do not have the spelling and grammar skills you wish you had, hand the work to a professional copy editor instead.
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From the Custom Fit Online team