A recent article on the BBC website argues that poor spelling can cost businesses millions of pounds.
A single spelling mistake can cut online sales in half. With so many Nigerian e-mail scams and phishing mails around, spelling is incredibly important to the credibility of a website. Social media may have relaxed the attitude to spelling mistakes in other areas of the Internet, a single error on your company's homepage or in an electronic newsletter can be a killer issue.
Getting the basics right is therefore very important. This blogger has three useful tips:
- Slow down
- Get some help
- Know your Kryptonite
To which we would like to add: never trust your spell checker. It can't tell you if you have misused a word, like using the wrong homonym (flare vs. flair), or inadvertently type the wrong word (like fry instead of try). There is no substitute for having documents read by a real person who has strong comprehension of grammar, usage and syntax in addition to spelling.
PS - This author is well aware of the existence of Muphry's Law, and is therefore sure that despite all his efforts, this blog post is sure to contain an error of its own.
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