Fresh meat here...

[Laura Varon]

Hello everyone.

I have a very basic and simple question - On a scale from 1 to 10, how much does it affect a company's credibility if there are spelling, punctuation or mistakes on their website? Would it influence your decision negatively, to the point where you would recommend NOT to make business with said company?

[Matt Jutras]

Very negative because it shows that the company obviously doesn't care enough when presenting themselves to the general public.

And if the company doesn't even care enough about themselves to at least appear professional, than what kind of quality could the customers possibly expect?

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by Laura Varon

On a scale from 1 to 10, how much does it affect a company's credibility if there are spelling, punctuation or mistakes on their website?

For a copywriter?

10.

End of story. I won't hire a copywriter who doesn't have a flawless command of English language, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I'll look the other way on certain colloquialisms... like, say, ending a sentence with a preposition or starting one with a conjunction or even the dreaded one-sentence paragraph... but you'd damn well better know how to use it for effect.

[Hesster]

While it would depend on the product, I'd have to say extremely negative also because IMHO it looks extremely unprofessional. If it were very minor (like say a silent e creeping in as a typo once or twice) then I'd probably ignore it, but I'd still wonder why it wasn't caught. If the product is something physical I'd say a 7, if it's for an info product, I'd say the impression would be much more negative. Probably a 9 or 10, because I'd expect the quality of the text in the product to be similar.

For any type of writing services, I'd say spelling, grammar, and punctuation are a real deal breaker. You can go to certain other sites on the internet and find advertisements from content writers who are obviously not native English speakers. These people can barely string together a sentence, let alone write an entire article or (God forbid) write copy.

I mean, really... Would you hire the person responsible for this?

Online dating is being popular in this demanding world. Nobody has time to just looking the dates in the newspapers only, so you can find out your date very easily via internet. The long term relations are only limited to few peoples. A survey has shown that over 50% of the marriages are ending with divorce so it is very important to look out for the new date and the advices to make the date much effective. Internet can help the people to go through these things.

[whizkey]

10 for me, for some reason it irks potential prospects.

[Global Greg]

If you have spelling and punctuation errors in this
day and age, then it shows the customer that you
are just reckless and lazy.

There is spell check on everything, even this box
I am typing in now.

If I see somebody with bad spelling, I assume they're
just reckless and who wants to give money for a service
to a person who is reckless and careless, not me!

[Kevin Lam]

Mmmm, fresh meat... "delicioso! yum-yum-yum-yum!"

That'll be a 10 for me as well. I hate having spelling errors on a site. I find them in professional books, newspaper and magazines. The biggest turn off is from an unproven marketer/seller. Folks that get away with it are folks like Frank Kern and Mike Filsaime. Even Mark Joyner and Armand Morin gets away with it, but not the rest of us.

Spelling errors, grammatical errors and so on can kill the sell almost 100% of the time. If I came across a site like that, I'd turn away without even thinking about it. It's just automatic.

[sherisaid]

10. Drives me crazy. Yesterday I ran across a web site designed to sell the services of a copywriter that was jam-packed with egregious grammatical errors. I was horrified. (ok, so I giggled and mocked. Don't judge me)

[MikeHumphreys]

Depends on the niche and the target market.

A more blue-collar market won't be as bothered by a typo or misspelled word. A highly-educated market will destroy you over grammar mistakes.

I know of a few cases where a marketing piece actually converted worse once they corrected the spelling mistakes!

A lot of typos and grammar mistakes... yes, it looks bad. But a few here or there isn't always a deal killer... depending on the target market.

Hope that helps,

Mike

[Paul McQuillan]

Since the invention of spell checkers I feel that anyone not going
at least that far is not worth my time.

let's not get into using the wrong word- to instead of too, ad instead of add, your instead of you're, etc..

you know who you are

[MikeHumphreys]

Paul,

Not every web design software has a spell checker. Dreamweaver MX2004 does and it still misses stuff all of the time. And I've yet to find one that has a grammar checker. That would be a HUGE help for everyone who ever builds a webpage.

Mike

[Kevin Lam]

Well, what I do is after a sales letter is completed is I open it up in FF and then copy all text. I then open up Microsoft Word and paste everything there. I then scroll down and look for words that have the red squiggly line underneath.

Bam, there's your spell checker.

[snowtigress]

Ooh, that would be... 10. If a company can't produce a perfectly written page, then it doesn't bode well for their product either. Whatever they're selling could be just as sloppy! -- NOT worth the investment.

[Paul McQuillan]

Originally Posted by MikeHumphreys

Paul,

Not every web design software has a spell checker. Dreamweaver MX2004 does and it still misses stuff all of the time. And I've yet to find one that has a grammar checker. That would be a HUGE help for everyone who ever builds a webpage.

Mike

I write out all copy in Word then cut and paste, plus I use FF.

I miss 0

The design software is irrelevant as I am writing, not designing

[Paul McQuillan]

I recently got in a, ummm debate? with someone who thought
their copy was lights-out good. They said it was very conversational.

The 1st paragraph had a 50 word sentence.

If people would just read their copy out loud; that answers if
it is conversational.

[sarahberra]

Yes, I think it would affect my ability to do business with that particular company because if they are sloppy in one area they will be sloppy in another area. I always triple check my work before I publish it on line.

[pritesh]

10 for me..

[mavischan]

Originally Posted by Matt Jutras

Very negative because it shows that the company obviously doesn't care enough when presenting themselves to the general public.

And if the company doesn't even care enough about themselves to at least appear professional, than what kind of quality could the customers possibly expect?

agree. bad presentation = bad service

[Revolves]

Well, I'd agree with others. Unless the company has already established credibility in my mind, the mistake would be quite unforgiving. But, if the product is good and I know the company/people well, then I feel it's worth an email informing them about the problem.

I've seen really bad mistakes being made (which I emailed the owners about). One of them was XSite Pro's site, wherein the order button in the homepage wasn't working. The second was another site (a quite popular one) whose support email was invalid. I figured out the "correct" support email and told them about the problem.

It's thus not surprising for me to see blunders made all around. But hey, we're all humans.

[MarkAndrews IMCopywriting]

Spelling errors, especially on professional sites, drives me absolutely nuts - I can't stand seeing them.

Having said that, I just noticed one glaring mistake on some sales copy I just supplied to someone, so a quick pm message was in order to get that corrected asap.

One point however to bear in mind are the many spelling nuances and/or differences between American English and British English.

I'll make a bet that most British copywriters are very aware of most of these differences although I bet most of my North American counterparts are not fully aware of British English spelling, although I could of course be completely wrong.

Some typical examples;

First the British spelling followed by the American spelling:

Cheque / Check
Tyre / Tire
Optimisation / Optimization
Endeavour / Endeavor
Colour / Color

Favourite / Favorite
Analyse / Analyze
Enrolment / Enrollment
Centre / Center
Theatre / Theater

Catalogue / Catalog
Dialogue / Dialog
Encylycopaedia / Encyclopedia
Manoeuvre / Maneuver
Judgement / Judgment

Licence / License
Jewellery / Jewelery
Programme / Program
Plough / Plow
Equalling / Equaling

There are many, many more instances such as these.

Something to be aware of.

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by WordPro

Encylycopaedia / Encyclopedia

Um... I don't think it's THAT different.

I have trouble with the British/American English thing, because while I'm not British myself, I do tend to prefer the British spellings for reasons I just plain don't understand. I spent some time in England and Ireland, picked up the UK vernacular to some degree, and now I have to correct my own writing because about 80% of it is UK English instead of US English.

For example, I write "manoeuvre" and "programme" most of the time, but not all of the time... and it just drives people bonkers.

[Shaka]

Poor grammar and sentence structure are like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I recently read a blog touting a product where the writer wrote by instead of buy to indicate a purchase and used the word to instead of too to indicate also. It left a credibility gap and, since the quality, attractiveness, and accuracy of your webpage is all your potential customer has to judge you by, any mistake can cost a sale.

[Kirah]

Originally Posted by Laura Varon

Hello everyone.

I have a very basic and simple question - On a scale from 1 to 10, how much does it affect a company's credibility if there are spelling, punctuation or mistakes on their website? Would it influence your decision negatively, to the point where you would recommend NOT to make business with said company?

10 for me as well. I absolutely HATE to see careless spelling errors. Especially if they are in print ads. I've been known to call and berate companies who insult my eyes with this nonsense.

I definitely have trouble changing between American/British spelling. I generally use the British spelling because that is how I was taught (being from the Caribbean). But I worked for an American company, proofing catalogues for an American audience and sometimes these "errors" would go unnoticed.

[Daniel Scott]

I can only speak from personal experience... however...

From split tests I have done, unless there are errors all over the place, it doesn't seem to be that much of an issue.

Far more important (again, based on my testing) is scanability, empathy, a logical layout, a killer headline, the "greased slide" approach... then things like fonts, background colors, headline colors, johnson boxes, images... etc etc etc.

I assume (haven't tested it) that a very educated market... for example, English professors... may be a little more sensitive to this kind of thing, but in my testing it i so far down on the testing food chain to be more or less a moot point.

That's not to say you SHOULD make mistakes... indeed, I do my best to ensure that my work is completely error-free... but sometimes things slip through the net.

I'm just saying that in the grand scheme of things spelling/grammar errors don't really affect response all that much... at least based on my tests.

-Dan

[Laura Varon]

Originally Posted by Kirah

10 for me as well. I absolutely HATE to see careless spelling errors. Especially if they are in print ads. I've been known to call and berate companies who insult my eyes with this nonsense.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH! ME TOO!

[Laura Varon]

Oh Dear Lord, I had completely forgotten about this post... I've read everyone's replies and I'd like to thank you for your thoughts. The question itself can be answered in one sentence, if not one word, so I appreciate that you took the time to elaborate

[Richard Kent]

Yes, depending on the kind of users, it doesn´t have a bad impact. But anyway, you pay for professionality. So fire him...

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by WordPro

Judgement / Judgment

This one is not so straightforward.

In England, the spelling actually depends on the context. Law text-books invariably refer to the "judgment of the court" and so on. In legal circles, at least, "judgment" is the correct UK spelling.

I may be wrong, but I suspect that the spelling "judgement" actually began as a mistake which became so widespread that the language more or less evolved to accommodate it, and it's now more commonly used than the original spelling.

[Jon Steel]

8 for me...

[reedcopywriting]

I used to work for a semi-famous internet marketer who actually wanted us to add in a few errors into our copy because he felt that it made the website more "down-to-earth" and less intimidating.

I disagree.

Of course, I DO think that short paragraphs and a conversational tone IS effective - even if you have to break a few rules.