Whether you market your small business in English or Spanish, don’t let a misspelled word tarnish your credibility. Customers tend to remember the error rather than the message.
Anita Campbell, a Small Business Administration guest blogger and publisher of BizSugar.com, offers some proofreading pointers. At a minimum, check for:
- Spelling (check for incorrectly spelled words, proper names and words spelled differently but that sound the same);
- Grammar;
- Sentence structure (did you use complete sentences?);
- Numbers (the difference between 20 and 200 is significant);
- Dropped or missing words.
Writing for the web and small mobile screens is different. Short sentences, short paragraphs, and bulleted lists are essential.
A helpful tool to develop a concise online writing style is the free Hemingwayapp.com that flags long, complex, or confusing passages for you to change.
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Take advantage of spelling and grammar checkers. In addition to catching spelling errors, grammar checkers pick up errors in word choice, grammar and sentence structure. Some of the choices include Grammarly.com, Gingersoftware.com, Whitesmoke.com, Grammark.org, Languagetool.org and Correctenglish.com. Some are free, some paid or some offer both versions.
If you find yourself making the same sorts of errors over and over, a checklist serves as a great reminder. For example, if you often misspell proper names, spell checkers may not help with names but your checklist will.
Finally, a common piece of advice is to read your written article aloud. Hearing it helps catch missed words, redundant phrases and similar issues. A text-to-speech application like naturalreaders.com can help. This type of application turns text into the spoken word so you can listen to your writing read back to you. Reading content backwards helps catch spelling errors.
Taking the time to proofread pays off. You gain a more polished end product and your marketing appears more credible.
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Diane Diamond is vice president of media relations for SCORE Southern Arizona, a nonprofit group that offers free small-business counseling and mentoring by appointment. For more information, go to southernarizona.score.org, email mentoring@scoresouthernaz.org or call 505-3636.