The Importance of Proofreading

We have all seen resulting examples of poor quality proofreading like typos on large billboards along the highway, or misspelled words on company advertisements.  Sometimes these poorly written and reviewed ads gain national attention in social media and everyone has a good laugh.  Like visual advertising, proofreading is also very important when it comes to creating websites.  This is especially true when the website is designed for a business client who depends on the website to promote his or her business and to satisfy the needs of current customers.  Let’s look at some things that quality proofreading can help and issues it can prevent.

 The most obvious thing quality proofreading accomplishes is sentences that lack proper grammar, punctuation, and clarity.  The first thing that comes to mind is a local newspaper website which posts articles loaded with typos, missing punctuation, and incorrect grammar that can lead the reader to possible misinformation and frustration.  Continuing errors will cause the newspaper website to lose its audience and eventually hurt its ranking with competitors.    

 When it comes to business websites that are viewed on desktop computers and mobile devices quality proofreading is essential to grabbing the reader’s attention and attracting that reader to the business's products or services.  When the reader encounters misleading information due to errors in writing it may cause the reader to leave the website right away and possibly not return to the website in the future.  When a website is well written with no grammatical errors or typos it enhances that website’s chance at being competitive.

 Many business websites are designed to sell their products and services online. Quality proofreading is crucial for these types of websites. Incorrect pricing or product descriptions could cause serious problems to the success of a business. For example, if a restaurant lists inaccurate prices on their website, then customers could be alienated when they come in to eat. Some customers might let the restaurant know about the issue, but many will not and simply never return again.

To gain the acceptance, trust, and dependability of current customers and prospective new customers many businesses must have a website to promote and sell their products and services.  Practicing quality proofreading should be a mandatory process in the design and maintenance of all websites.  For a support team, it is important for several sets of eyes to review and proofread the entire website before it goes live.  Accurate and well-written content will promote the success of the website.