Poor grammar on your website may be costing you
The words on your website are as important as the images. They tell a story about you, your work, and your customers. If you rush to publish your website pages and blogs without proofreading, those missed grammar and spelling mistakes can lead visitors to question if you will rush through your customers' work also.
Errors may be costing you
Thanks to my reader Jane for pointing me to this study on websiteplanet.com that showed in real terms that error-free writing pays off. The content team at the company won its bet against the marketing team and showed that paying writers higher salaries results in better writing and more subscribers.
Finding grammar and spell checking help
These days you can find grammar help from many sources. You still have the options of asking your keen-eyed grammar-geek friend to proofread your blog, checking spelling in online dictionaries, and composing in Microsoft Word to take advantage of its spelling and grammar checkers. But there are other online sources of help too.
Grammarly is a popular grammar checker that you can install in your browser. It proofreads your social media posts as you're typing and suggests changes. I tried it, but it slowed me down too much, so I'm still counting on my eyes to catch mistakes.
Find punctuation help
I recently found The Punctuation Guide, which is more to my liking. I tend to have questions about the use of punctuation marks, especially commas and quotation marks. The guide is organized by types of punctuation marks and has clear, succinct instructions. You'll also find answers to those tricky questions about apostrophes with possessives ("its" or "it's"?) and answers to questions you didn't know you had (hyphen, en dash, or em dash?).
Use only one space after a period
If you grew up in the age of typewriters, you should know about a new rule in Grammar Town about spaces after a period. Use just one space at the end of a sentence, not two. That's the new standard for online posts. And The Punctuation Guide will back me up on that; check it out!
I hope these tips motivate you to double-check your website for spelling errors and grammar bloopers. And if you find any errors on mine, I'll be pleased to have you correct me.
