Spelling mistakes could cost you millions in lost online sales

When it comes to promoting and selling products or services online, every business needs to make a good first impression. This can usually be accomplished by an attractive website with lots of top-notch content or social media profiles with plenty of activity.

However, if these platforms are riddled with spelling or grammatical mistakes, it could cost the business a huge amount of money. Research suggests that a company’s bottom line performance can be adversely affected by written word oversights and inaccuracies.

So, with this in mind, let’s take a closer look at why spelling and grammar should be a prime performance concern as well as the reasons for hiring a content writing agency instead of producing copy in-house.

The impact bad spelling has on sales

According to Internet entrepreneur Charles Duncome, poor spelling is costing the UK millions of pounds in lost online revenue. Through analysis of website figures, he has found that a single spelling error has the potential to cut sales in half.

Mistakes in copy are said to put off consumers and create concern that a website isn’t credible. This is a sentiment echoed by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), whose head of education and skills previously warned that too many employers were investing in remedial literacy lessons for staff.

“Often these cutting-edge companies depend upon old-fashioned skills,” noted Duncombe. “I know that industry bemoaning the education system is nothing new but it is becoming more and more of a problem with more companies going online.

“This is because when you sell or communicate on the Internet, 99% of the time it is done by the written word.”

On one particular website, Duncombe measured the revenue per visitor before and after an error was corrected. One changed, revenue doubled.

How spelling and grammar errors can affect more than just revenue

If you take the previous example and assume every website with spelling errors also loses this much in revenue, then the need to improve copy becomes more significant. However, poor spelling can affect several others things too. This include:

• First impressions – Duncome also reiterated the point that websites only have around six seconds to capture the audience’s attention. If a spelling or grammatical error is obvious, then you’ll fail to make a good first impression and visitors may leave the site quickly.
• Online reputation – As mentioned previously, consumers worry about a site’s credibility if there are mistakes in the copy. Soon, your site could be accused of publishing spam or phishing, which could seriously affect online reputations.
• Attention to detail – According to Brad Hoover, CEO of grammar software program Grammarly, attention to detail in other areas of the business can suffer if spelling mistakes become common place, as identifying errors can become something of an obsession.
• Critical thinking – Having the ability to structure a grammatically correct sentence and recognising spelling mistakes is a sign that the individual can also analyse or explain other complex issues too.
• Career prospects – Although this doesn’t concern businesses, poor spelling and grammar can have a negative impact on an individual’s career prospects. Fewer errors correlate with higher positions and more promotions, whereas failing to demonstrate intellectual aptitude through spelling and grammar can influence an employer when hiring.

Why hiring a content writing agency is beneficial

It’s clear to see that good spelling and grammar is incredibly important in terms of succeeding online. But rather than writing copy in-house, it can be much more beneficial to enlist the services of a content marketing agency. Here’s why:

• Professionalism and proficiency – Writing first-class copy is what a content marketing agency does. This is its field of expertise, specialising in creating copy that catches the audience’s attention, evokes positive emotions and most importantly, doesn’t contain mistakes. Therefore, you can rest assured that your website won’t be affected by poor spelling and grammar.
• Fresh pair of eyes – If members of staff tasked with writing copy are dealing with these words and phrases on a regular basis and then have to proof and edit the content they’ve just written, mistakes are inevitable. However, content writing agencies will have writers, proofers and editors on hand to look at copy with a fresh pair of eyes and ensure no errors are present.
• Stand out from the crowd – We have already commented on how quickly online consumers make a decision or form an opinion about the websites they visit. In a short amount of time, you need to communicate a lot of information while giving visitors an entertaining or informative experience. Thankfully, the expertise of a content writing agency can make this possible and your site will stand out from an overflowing online crowd.
• Improve online performance – Not only will you benefit from error-free copy, which has already been proven to improve overall performance, the business can benefit in other ways too. A content writing agency will know how to craft copy that increases exposure, enhances reputations, builds relationships and boosts bottom-line conversions.
• Improve productivity and efficiency – Even though top-quality copy will make a difference online, other areas of the business can thrive too. Seeing as you don’t need to worry about website content, your time, effort and resources can be used to improve productivity and efficiency across the organisation. Gone are the days of crawling through copy with a fine-tooth comb or obsessing over an error-riddled website, as a content writing agency can take care of all that.

Here at Content Hero, we have worked with a number of clients whose website copy has featured a few spelling mistakes and grammatical errors here and there. But we are more than happy to help out and believe that our content is capable of not only improving online sales, but also bringing about a wide range of other advantages too.