Be careful of your spelling
One of my biggest pet peeves is misspelled words, especially those that present themselves in professional content. Perhaps it could be because I am a journalist by trade, so when I see grammatical errors or misspelled words my eye begins to twitch. The White House recently committed the mistake of misspelling the name of Frederick Douglass by forgetting an (s) at the end of his name.
https://www.usatoday.com/story...
It was pretty embarrassing to see something like this come out of the White House, but with everything coming out of the news lately, this is probably the least surprising.
I often see some blog posts with misspelled words in the titles, and in the content. Usually when I see it in the title I immediately delete the email without even opening the blog post because to me, it screams mediocrity.
Just imagine if majority of your audience thinks just like me? Can you imagine how much readership you will lose in the end because you didn't pay attention to your spelling?
WA has a pretty good spelling and grammar checking tool on here. Another good tool I use is Grammarly. I highly recommend this tool because you can install it on your browser and it will check your work in whatever website you are working on.
When I write my blog posts inside SiteContent I use the built in grammar and spelling checker, then once I transfer the post to WordPress I check it again with Grammarly, because sometimes it may pick up something I missed.
Okay, I am off my spelling rant soap box now. Happy blogging everyone!
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I love a good spolling mistook! My favourite was when I received a job application from someone who was trying to explain their part-time working pattern and wanted to tell me that their shifts were only once every two weeks - that was fine apart from the fact that they missed the 'f' out of the word 'shifts'........we laughed about it for weeks! :)
I was very discreet.....glad it made you laugh though. It still makes me laugh now so it's a good one to remind myself of if things get too heavy - life's got a wonderful lighter side sometimes! :) Have a great day. Gail
I couldn't agree more with you. All the misspellings and poor grammar make me crazy! What's more, if the target for these sites is a US audience, many people will react just as you do to these mistakes and navigate away as quickly as possible. It's hard to trust a site that contains these types of errors.
Very true! And the way the Google algorithm continues to change will only end up with poorly written blogs nowhere in the rankings. Once upon a time all you had to do was just put up a site, add some content with ads, and you would instantly make money because the internet was still new. Today not so much. You actually have to put some work into providing quality content.
I agree, but you e got to remember that there are a lot of members who have English as their second language. Those folks deserve a little slack, I think. They’re doing their best.
Grant.
I am not trying to discount those that use English as their second language, but unfortunately, Google will not let that slide as an excuse, and that is why I pointed out some useful tools to avoid some of those mistakes that can hinder our ultimate goal which is to make money and help others.
None of us are perfect, and I certainly will not claim that title myself, but there are things in place to help us :)
I understand your position, but here's the more important thing - if those sites are targeting a US audience, they will not perform well. We may cut them slack in blog posts within WA, but the general public will not. Instead they will navigate to a different site on the same topic. Bounce rate will be high. This isn't a place where we are helping them by cutting them slack; instead we could actually be hurting ESL folks.
Yes there are, and I know your heart was in the right place. Please don’t think I was bring critical. I do think sometimes that we tend to make the perfect the enemy of the good. We all have to start somewhere. It’s good that you knew of those tools and shared them. :)
I couldn't agree with you more, J. Pride. When I first got on WA I had a discussion with other members about this who felt that getting something out there was more important than correct grammar and spelling. I've always been a stickler for this, but since having spent a year proofreading for Ken Blanchard, I am a fanatic about it now! And yet, since I'm human, I still make MISTEAKS sometimes!! Carol
Isn't it funny that when we work in the world of proofreading and editing it almost comes as a second nature? But like you said, being human makes us continuously make mistakes ;)
It is. It's almost like a sixth sense...they just jump out at us and scream MISTAKE! I have an online penpal who is an English major and used to write for a government agency. I really have to be careful when I write to him, because it's sort of a game between us to see if we can catch each other in a spelling error! He'll catch me every time!
That same scenario is pretty common with some of my colleagues. I will write something that I will think is top of the line, and then I get my work back with all kinds of red ink, mainly because I am still sort of a passive writer. I know the feeling all too well!
I agree. These types of mistakes are unprofessional. I like to think that I've caught all my mistakes, but I'm sure I've missed a few.
The tool in Site Content does miss some things.
Thanks for the post.
We all do it. Even though I am trained as a journalist, I even have my work checked by another set of eyes before I publish anything. I am so grateful for spellcheck!
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It is a very good idea to use spell checkers.