Spelling Mistakes Prove Costly for Internet Businesses

Online Entrepreneur has said that poor spelling could actually end up costing the UK millions of pounds in lost revenue for businesses which are based online. It is that detrimental that just one spelling mistake can cut online sales in half!

When spelling mistakes are present on a website, consumers become concerned in regard to how credible it actually is and this concern could be why they choose to go elsewhere.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has echoed this point recently when they raised the point that there has been a raise in the number of employers who actually have to invest in remedial literacy lessons for their employees – it is the poor spelling which is proving to be a serious problem detrimental to the online economy.

Even though the online businesses are very much up to date and providing or using cutting edge technologies they still need basic skills in grammar, spelling and general English. Unfortunately because there is not enough staff available to recruit who can actually spell the online business sector is suffering.

Currently internet sales within the UK alone are running at £527million per week, figures which were produced by the Office for National Statistics. With businesses going online it means that during the process of selling a product or service any communication will be done online through written word. Therefore spelling and grammar become more apparent in written English than in spoken English.

Now you may think that one mistake couldn’t prove all that detrimental, think again! It was actually tested and after a mistake was corrected the revenue taken was twice as high. This was done for just one business, on a global scale if you were to correct all the spelling mistakes then millions of pounds in business could be generated.

With the current economic status people are worried regarding scams, scandals and fraud. Simple spelling mistakes trigger a thought process and thus generate underlying concerns about safety and fraud. It is for this reason that basic grammar and spelling is absolutely essential. People are warned to look out for minor spelling issues or grammatical issues which would be due to phishing efforts or spam and thus if one is apparent the customer will go elsewhere.

On the surface when employing people to work within a company their cv’s have contained spelling mistakes, grammatical errors as well as the use of slang and text speak! Most worryingly those who could actually type a decent cv and covering letter when presented with a written test minus a computer spell checker revealed that in actual fact their grammar and spelling was awful. In actual fact 42% of employers are not satisfied with the basic reading and writing skills of school and colleague leavers.

It is appropriate to say that some online businesses or other online sites can be tolerant of spelling and grammar issues. Social networking sites regularly have miss spellings and grammatical error as well as the use of slang and obsolete language. It is important to draw a line between sites like these and professional business websites for commercial or business use which represent a company or brand and therefore have its reputation to keep.

Maybe the government need to revise the curriculum in order to try and improve basic literacy and numeracy skills of all school and college leavers. After all these are going to be the future generation and it would be nice to think that correct grammar and spelling would be continued throughout the generations.

Brick technology web design would advise all companies to check any content on their websites, emails or anything visible to customers in order to ensure that it is grammatically correct and there are no spelling mistakes. A five minute read through of content could be the difference between a sale and someone going elsewhere – maybe to a competitor! When we present our web designs the content is provided by our customers according to their requirements, even so we carry out full quality assurance checks which include reading through every single word of every sentence in order to ensure that it is professional and correct.

Brick technology web designs are not only world class and highly professional but they speak for themselves – just take a look at our portfolio! If you need a website then come to us.

For more information please contact us on 01254 277190 or email info@brickweb.co.uk.

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