Don’t Msispell Wrods! The Importance of Proofreading in Content Creation and Copywriting.

I have an embarrassing confession to make.

I’m not proud of it.

I wish it weren’t true.

No, I’m not talking about the time my friends walked in on me teary-eyed watching so-called “chick flick” movies from the ‘90’s. 

(Hey, “Notting Hill” is a great film, alright?! Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts were perfect for each other! Quit making fun of me!)

I’m actually talking about typos.

Yes, those annoying little spelling mistakes that plague the content creation and copywriting process and always seem to go unnoticed until AFTER something gets published. 

I always worry about making such little mistakes and it drives me crazy!

Not to mention grammar and punctuation errors. These minor screw-ups are like little hobgoblins that always seem to manage to get past Microsoft Word’s spell check defenses as though they were made of Swiss cheese. 

And chances are that if you’re human, you make similar mistakes too. Unless you’re either a cyborg or Mark Zuckerberg. Although I’m not entirely convinced Zuckerberg is human, so there might not actually be a difference between the two. 

(Just kidding, Mark! Please don’t shut down my Facebook page!)

Unfortunately, having too many typos can ruin an otherwise good website, product, piece of copywriting, or marketing campaign. 

I was recently reading through an online marketing course by a relatively popular internet figure whom I shall leave anonymous out of respect. 

The actual strategies described in the course seemed pretty good overall and I’ve seen tons of people using them on sites such as Linkedin to help advance their careers in copywriting and content creation. 

There were certainly positive and negative aspects regarding his tactics, but what I found to be very distracting while reading through the material were his constant spelling errors. 

At one point, he even managed to misspell “search bar”, writing “serach” instead. Honestly, how does one misspell a simple freakin’ word like “search”?! 

Such carelessness can really cheapen the rest of the experience even if the overall product is good. 

So don’t be like that guy. 

There’s natural human error and then there’s pure carelessness. Big difference. 

Don’t be the careless ding-dong who can’t take a little extra time to do some basic proofreading. 

If you DO find the occasional mistake in your writing, make darn sure it’s because that mistake defied all of the odds and slipped past a heavy duty proofreading defense strategy. Not because you couldn’t be bothered to glance things over one more time.  

And don’t assume that a computer program like Microsoft Word will automatically catch everything for you. For one reason or another, it very well might not. 

Sometimes being careless or inattentive can produce unintentionally hilarious results while being technically correct in terms of spelling. The mistake might not even be immediately obvious. 

An infamous example of this happened in the United Kingdom when a singer by the name of Susan Boyle tried to stir up some hype for a music album she had coming up. 

Someone on her PR team thought it would be a good idea to start a campaign on Twitter with the hashtag susanalbumparty.

For those of you who aren’t very familiar with British English, the word “bum” means somebody’s rear end over in Great Britain.

So if you use your imagination, “Susan Album Party” becomes Su’s… well… I’ll let you figure out the rest on your own :)

My point here is that such a silly oversight could’ve easily been avoided if someone had just taken a few extra seconds to examine the words more closely and think about them. 

That particular example comes courtesy of a marketing campaign on Twitter, but a similar situation could potentially happen anywhere. 

Think about your website, your blog, your products, your landing page, your advertising, etc. 

Did you proofread everything? Does it all make sense? Do you have keywords that will get picked up by the search engines? Are those keywords spelled correctly? Did you include links anywhere? Are those links working?

What if you’ve set up an otherwise great website using Squarespace? That’s great, but having a few dumb spelling errors will still stick out like a sore thumb. 

Always take the time to read through everything again. It can really make all the difference. 

There are certainly times when speaking casually can be appropriate. Typing “ur” instead of “you’re” has a time and place, but if you want to create a professional looking website or run a serious marketing campaign it’s best to err on the side of proper spelling. 

Save the drunken text message style of communication for when it’s appropriate. 

So I’ll say it again and again.

Double and triple check your writing. Double and triple check your writing. 

Seriously, DOUBLE and TRIPLE check your writing! 

Otherwise, you might end up inadvertently telling people that you’re having a “bum party” of your own.

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