No Room for Errors

Why Typos Mean Death for a Website

The typo. The bane of writers everywhere. Spellcheck alone won’t save you from describing yourself as an Assistant Manger, and the number of times the “L” has been accidentally omitted from “public,” resulting in utter hilarity for onlookers, is shockingly high. We rush, we’re distracted, we’re too familiar with our own work to see mistakes, and typos happen. Making a typo in an email to your boss or in a Twitter post is embarrassing but it can be shrugged off – we’re all human, after all. But on a company’s website, typos and grammatical errors can have major consequences.

The marketing and content teams at Website Planet sought to quantify the extent to which typos or grammatical errors impact companies online. The entire report is worth a read, but their two main takeaways are astounding:

1. In Google Ads, content with typos had 70% fewer clicks than clean copy.

2. Websites with typos on their landing pages had an 80% bounce rate (visitors who leave the entire site and trigger no other action after viewing only one page).

These short-term results are shocking, but there is another long-term consequence as well – the reduction in clicks and high bounce rate for these sites also resulted in lowered rankings by Google’s algorithms. Lower rankings mean a lower position in a user’s search results, which can be lethal for a site. Studies have shown that almost 95 percent of users will click only on those sites that appear in the first page of organic results (non-paid ads) in a Google search. Even then, over a quarter of the overall traffic goes to the top result, and the tenth site listed enjoys only 2.5 percent of the clicks.

Of course, no one wants to let a mistake slip into their website. Yet, it’s not uncommon for business owners to try to avoid the expense of hiring a digital content editor or proofreader. Maybe they’ve done fine writing on their own so far or they feel that readers won’t be picky. But think for a moment about businesses that always seem to be one step ahead and do it flawlessly. I can almost guarantee that they use an editor – in-house or freelancer – to ensure their attention to detail holds true across all platforms. They know that a single typo can damage credibility, erode trust, and impact their bottom line. The really smart ones know that typos can mean death.

People simply do not trust a website that contains errors. Mistakes in website copy will not only tarnish the professionalism of a business, they can cost good money. Losing potential customers because of a sloppy mistake is an avoidable catastrophe, and fortunately, it’s easily remedied. Google’s algorithms are always changing, and its crawlers are constantly combing through sites to rank and re-rank. Positive adjustments to SEO, including fixing typos and errors and improving written content to better target keywords and relevancy, will allow a site to work its way back up the rankings.

It’s never too late to hire a professional to comb through your online material and stay ahead of the game. Far and Loud offers copyediting and proofreading services that can meet the digital needs of any sized business. Contact us today to ensure your business is putting its best foot forward to keep your website healthy and thriving.