Content marketing is all about building authority, but this is hard to do if your news feed or other content is marred by spelling and grammatical errors. Some experts claim that content has less than a second to impress someone, so a blatant spelling or grammatical error is clearly going to turn off many readers. Here are some of the most common traps to avoid:
Be wary of cheap content
Some companies outsource their content generation to non-native English speakers, who often work for much less than their native counterparts. This may seem alluring from a financial perspective, but it will generally result in error-riddled content that will harm rather than help your content marketing efforts.
Don’t rely on spell checkers
If you write some content yourself, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that automated spell checks are infallible. While spelling checkers are helpful when combined with informed human judgement, they are simply not capable of catching all errors. Autocorrect features can also lead to unintended outcomes. If you really need to write content yourself, get it proofread to ensure it’s free from errors.
Watch out for common grammatical slips
There are many areas of English that even some native speakers find hard to grasp, so be particularly careful with:
• Using homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently), such as ‘lead’ and ‘led’
• Confusing ‘i.e.’ with ‘e.g.’
• Using apostrophes incorrectly (e.g. “1970’s”)
• Punctuating sentences correctly, such as to avoid run-on sentences and comma splices
Good freelance writers will catch most errors, but it can be hard to proofread your own work. They’re also generally paid per word rather than per hour, so it’s rarely in their interest to triple check their own work. This tends to be a less of a problem with good copywriting services, because they generally have a team of editors to ensure quality content.
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- How can you find freelance writers for a website news feed? - December 20, 2017
