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Few businesses would hit the ‘print’ button on an order of packaging, books, brochures or branded merchandise without double or triple checking the spelling first.
Who wants to put the first lot in the bin and pay for a reprint?
Unfortunately, that same vigilance we adopt when committing words to ink is not always applied to wording online. The ability to instantly amend websites can give way to complacency and lead to a fast, rather than thorough approach to spell checking.
And although an easily corrected stray typo here and there might not seem a big deal, the reality can be a real turn-off for customers and could directly impact your sales.
Accurate spelling on your website is as important as good design, photography and functionality. It’s part of your presentation and vital for making a good impression. If you don’t care about your website, how much will you care about the service or product you offer the customer?
Not everyone is or needs to be a talented writer, but a good basic command of the English language is expected in most professions. If your website is littered with spelling errors, it implies a lack of knowledge and can leave customers questioning your abilities in other areas.
Your customers come to you because you can do or make something for them better than they can do it themselves. They put their faith in you to do your job well and take care of all the little details that they might miss. If they’re spotting mistakes on your website that you’ve overlooked, they’re already doing a job better than you are and that does not instil trust!
Quite simply, if key words on your site are incorrectly spelled, your website will not show up in relevant searches. What’s more, other sites will be reluctant to link to yours if it looks unprofessional, meaning you could miss out on those SEO-boosting inbound links.
If people are going onto your website but leaving quickly, put off by the poor spelling they spot, it creates a low dwell time (they don’t stay very long and don’t look at other pages) plus a high bounce rate (they leave quickly). These two combined, tell the search engine spiders that your website didn’t answer their question, didn’t give a good user experience and wasn’t what they needed. The consequence is that it starts to rank you lower in the search results.
Consumers are becoming more alert to signs of scams and know to look out for not only clear red flags such as ‘Barclay’s banc’ or ‘HM Tax Ofise’ but also smaller mistakes that would not be expected from a professional, esteemed business or organisation. If your site has spelling errors and particularly if key words or your brand is spelled incorrectly, it could be immediately dismissed as a scam, losing you credibility and customers.
That’s ok – no one is saying you have to be good at everything in your business! Even if your website was written by someone else who is great at spelling, it’s easy for some typos to creep in. Checking every page manually can take a long time. Our website checker can scan your website for you, we’ll then send you a report and you can quickly and confidently make any necessary amends. It could save you a lot of time – and customers!
Research carried out in 2019 by Website Planet found that:
Get in touch today to find out more or try our free assessment.
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