Is poor spelling costing you business?

Is your business leaking clients?.

Spelling mistakes, typos or dodgy punctuation can be slightly funny at best.

Think “Let’s eat Grandma” vs “Let’s eat, Grandma”. Although it’s doubtful that grandmas will find that even remotely funny.
In business, though, there are plenty of reasons as to why spelling errors are not a laughing matter.

Poor spelling on websites spooks customers

Creating confusion for web readers is a real worry. Although it’s possibly the least of your worries – particularly if you’re running an ecommerce site.

Analysis of UK site data indicates that as many as 50% of customers will not commit to a purchase if they detect even one spelling error on a page.

The poor spelling = spam perception

Are customers pedants? No. But we all associate poor spelling with fishy/spammy/malware, and we’re sensible enough not to provide our credit card details to a company that doesn’t look legit.

As a result, poor spelling becomes a key setting on a customer’s radar.

Spelling errors can affect the functionality of a site

A spelling error in a link address can make the link dysfunctional. It can also impede functionality in a search. One spelling error is even thought to be responsible for taking down the ambitious but fragile Obamacare website. So the ability of spelling to wreak havoc really knows no bounds.

Poor spelling diminishes trust

More commonly, spelling errors and poor punctuation suggests a lack of professionalism. Whether you are an accountant, a chain of medical practices or a tradesperson, if your website or communications suggest you’re sloppy and don’t check your work, it’s not a great indicator of your services.

And if a reader finds fault with your spelling, then it diminishes the credibility of the facts and information detailed on your webpage, report or brochure.

Simple spelling solutions

Let’s face it though, we all make mistakes. The solution lies not in self-flagellation, or committing oneself to authorial chastity out of fear of a single error.

It’s just to acknowledge that checking and proofreading a draft – whether it’s for a blog post, email or business card – is worth every minute you spend on it.

Check words as you write them

Does a word look funny? If you can keep a dictionary on your desk, then it can be a great idea to do a quick check as you’re writing the word – and then you can put that worry to bed. If you feel the pause will disturb your ‘roll’, highlight it to check later.

Doing a search online is another option, but consult an official dictionary site if possible. And remember the point about being on a roll? You’re less likely to get distracted by a dictionary than when surfing the web.

Run your content through a spellchecker

Of course this is always a good idea, as it should weed out any accidental typos. What it may not pick up is when you have left in an extra ‘and’ or ‘if’, or substituted a homonym; eg their for there, accept for except, to for too, and so on. There are many examples of these in the English language and it’s common for our brains to substitute the incorrect one when the ideas are flowing like lava.

Get someone else involved

This is where a fresh pear, sorry pair, of eyes come in. We can become accustomed to certain parts of text looking a certain way, and an error can be sitting right under our nose.

A proof reader will give your content the most thorough going over. Having your content prepared by a copywriter is another way to take the pressure off.

But a colleague or friend will pick up things with their fresh pair of eyes that you may have missed, so if you can, do get someone else to cast their eyes over your words.

Give it a break

If you are proofreading your own work, take a break before doing the final read. This will give your eyes a chance to ‘freshen up’, too.

Style vs substance

What about when there’s no one correct way to spell something? Choose the configuration that’s most relevant to you, and stick with it. Consistency of use becomes the benchmark in this case.

So when we use a word that has more than one variation of spelling, or can be written as one word, two words, or with a hyphen (such as data centre, datacentre, data-centre, datacentre…you get the picture), it’s a great idea to jot it down in your company writing or style guidelines for anyone in your company to refer to.

Do you have any other tips on keeping copy error free?

25 Responses

  1. Agreed. As a copywriter and proofreader, it’s excruciating for me to see easily-spotted spelling mistakes and bad grammar in websites. I’m proofing for a digital company who make learning apps and I’ve developed an ever-evolving ‘house style sheet’ in which every single word is given a lot of consideration – we’ve decided our way of writing so many compound words simply to keep it consistent (another bugbear of mine is the same words spelled differently on different pages of a website!). Decide what you want and stick to it (providing it’s correct in the first place, that is)!

    1. Absolutely Ruth – house style sheets are an indispensable reference and don’t get the love they deserve! And if we’re disciplined enough to consult them whenever we’re unsure about the presentation of a word, I find it becomes easier to remember each one the next time, too. Otherwise you’re forever flipping about in painful indecision! Thanks for sharing your experience.

    2. I’m happy to let one spelling mistake slip – as I’m certainly not infallible in this area – but more than one or two and it just looks sloppy.

      On having different spellings, I used to work for a software company that used Enquiry and Inquiry interchangeably across the menus of their products. It. Drove. Me. Nuts.

    1. Yes Geraldine! When everything is considered Important Enough To Be Capitalised, then none of it ends up looking very important at all…

    2. I used to capitalise my headlines but I’ve come around. I do think capitalisation is a formatting tool that can help you make words stand out… but it’s to be used sparingly!

      1. Out of interest, what made you ‘come around’? I’ve recently noticed more blog headlines being written all in lower case (which I prefer). The confusion lies in what to do with the little words…

        1. My proofread kept correcting me 😉 Eventually I came to prefer only one capital. It seems to be a little less aggressive. That’s seems weird now that I’ve written it down!

  2. Great article. I wish business owners would understand how important it is to have an error-free website. So many of them seem happy to write the content themselves and upload it, warts and all.
    I would never buy from a company who were sloppy with their spelling, as I’d imagine they’d be sloppy with other aspects of the business too.

  3. If you can’t get another set of eyes and something just must be posted immediately, reading the copy out loud (even if it’s to your dog) really does help to pick up errors that seem to get missed on-screen.

    1. Reading aloud is a great tip miracleworkerva – thanks for adding it in. Dogs are so helpful in so many ways 🙂

  4. Don’t get me started on its/it’s and your/you’re and they’re/their/there!!! How does “Your the one whose wrong” make any sense??? You ARE the one who IS wrong. Yes, they’re very wrong.

    1. Yes! I reckon its/it’s is probably the most common error of all time. One easy way I’ve found to remind students is the connection between his,her and its – as it’s pretty hard to shove an apostrophe in his or her when they serve the same purpose!

      1. Actually, the iPhone auto-corrects me when I’m texting and put ‘its’ without an apostrophe, to one WITH an apostrophe! It’s not a sentence decoration, it actually serves a purpose!

  5. I couldn’t agree more! Poor spelling always make me doubt someone’s skills in his or hers professional area. Correct me if I’m wrong but if someone can’t spell right, how could (s)he look out for details?

    1. My thoughts exactly Petya. Although I would clarify and say, “if someone hands over copy with spelling errors”.

      Because I am a terrible proofreader! But I look after the details by outsourcing it to a professional. So the end product is always error-free.

  6. Although a .com site, I assume this must be British English, as the commas and periods are placed outside the quotation marks.

    1. You’re spot on! I’m an Aussie so I prefer Aus/British English but I’ve also lived in the US for 9 years now so my instinctive spelling is morphing!

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