Leave No Errors — Find The Eight Contained Herein

It’s all in the writing and editing.

According to the British magazine RealBusiness, 74% of web readers pay attention to the quality of spelling and grammer. This is important because your credibility is at steak with each and every peace you put out there. Granted, there are pimples who won’t care that there’s a mistake here and there, but do you really want to take a Chance and risk it? You put your reputation on the line everytime you comunnicate, so don’t take a chance and make sure no words are mispelled.

As I said in the headline, there are eight errors in the paragraph. Some were obvious, such as a random capitalization in the word “Chance.” Others might be caught if you use a spell-checking machine ( “grammer” and “comunnicate” and “mispelled”). But others require a critical eye because there’s no guarantee an algorithm would catch words that are spelled correctly but are wrong in context (“steak,” “peace” and “pimples”). If you take the time and read what is written, you’ll find all mistakes, including the eighth one, “everytime,” which is two words.

In a poll I conducted on LinkedIn, only 42% of respondents correctly found all the mistakes. This makes me ask, What message are you sending when you see the big picture (the importance of spelling and grammar) but miss some details (the eight errors)? What does it say about your professionalism, competence and attention to detail? Will people think you really care, or are you just mailing it in?

People — and I mean your target markets and prospects — are going to draw conclusions when they see copy you’ve put out that has errors in it. What will it cost you to overlook these seemingly little mistakes? Is it worth that cost? Are you positioning yourself in the best possible way to reach those people?

Some things to think about.