Proofreading Your Website Copy

bydandruie

78 followers

10 years ago

Everyone makes little mistakes with their grammar now and then, or spelling, or sentence fragments. There's a lot to go wrong when trying to get words on paper quickly so you don't miss a thought. What's really nuts is that you can read over those mistakes multiple times and never see them. I think what happens is that you see what you meant to write, not what you wrote. This becomes important when you consider that good grammar gets you better rankings with Google.

There is a simple trick that has always worked for me when proofreading and it's worth sharing: Read aloud. It's that simple, but it's amazing how the sound of the words in your ear will make you stop at an error. You may not catch every mistake, but you will be surprised at how little gets by that one little accuracy test.

PS: For example, when I originally wrote this blog, I proofed it at least four times. An hour after publishing it, I went back for a look and saw that I had put "You" instead of "Your" in the title. I had not read through the title. Embarrassing, but it makes the point.

Anyone remember the old WWII poster "THIMK"? It applies.