How Do You Spell Success for Your Website? Correctly!
I can’t stress the importance of using correct spelling and grammar on your website enough. Poor spelling creates a bad first impression that can leave a lasting effect when customers choose to shop with your competitors rather than you.
It may surprise you that poor spelling can also harm your SEO efforts. If you repeatedly spell one of your keywords incorrectly, it could have a negative impact on your search engine results because Google won’t be able to find that keyword in the text. If your text is littered with errors it could also lead Google to the conclusion that your site doesn’t have anything useful to say!
It really does pay to get little details right on your website as it creates a good first impression and pleases the search engines. Take some time today to read through your website text and make any corrections that are needed.
Follow these top tips for getting your content right every time:
- Write your content in Word and copy and paste this into your CMS – this will help you to spot spelling and grammar mistakes.
- Read what you have written out loud – it’s the best way to check how your content ‘reads’.
- If in doubt, print your content out. This way you can edit it with your red pen, or give it to a friend or colleague to read.
- Beware of American spelling. Americanisms can lead your customers to the conclusion that you are based in theUSA, which could put them off buying from your site. American spellings can also be confusing toUKsearch engines.
It Pays to Proof Read
Like Tom said last week in his blog post, it only takes three seconds for a customer to make up their mind about your website. If you want your company to come across in the correct light, you must make sure the text on your website is error-free. Spelling, punctuation and grammar must be correct – no excuses!
I know my blog post is starting to sound like a rant from your English teacher, but trust me – good English on your website is an absolute must. Errors in your copy reflect badly on your company because glaring mistakes look unprofessional – especially if a typo gets in the way of the message you are trying to put across. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes – if you can’t get your copy right, will they want to trust you with their money?
Here are my top tips for making sure your website is error-free:
• Write any text for your website in Word. This means you can easily spell-check your writing for errors.
• Get someone else to proof read your text. It’s easy to miss your own mistakes, as your eyes will read what they want to read! Ask a colleague to check your writing, or if you’re alone in the office, read it aloud – you will often spot mistakes this way.
• If in doubt, print it out. It’s hard to read a page of text carefully off a computer screen. Printing your copy to check it will help you to find errors, and you can also write on any corrections to remind yourself to make changes later on.
Taking a little extra time to proof read your website costs nothing – so make sure you do it today! And if you need a little extra help, give eSterling a call for Copywriting services.
Why is Duplicate Content Bad for my Website?
Nobody likes a copycat – especially Google. That’s why having content duplicated on multiple websites is a big no-no when it comes to SEO.
Google will reward your website for having unique content – and will punish accordingly if it doesn’t. Using the same copy from the web throughout your site, for directory listings; or even copying and pasting from another site (naughty you!) can seriously harm your search engine rankings.
We have recently been working with a website which had great rankings throughout Bing, Yahoo and other major search engines, but was not getting anywhere in Google. A search using Copyscape showed that the content on the home page was also being used in a number of directories such as Applegate.
Google was therefore penalising the website thinking that the text had simply been copied from the directories. By re-writing the content for the directories we recovered the search engine positions for this site in Google – happy days!
Make sure that you check your site for duplicate content – and each time you join a directory don’t just copy and paste! Take a little time to re-write your content and Google will love you for it. And if your copy is sloppy, simply get in touch with us about our copywriting service.