Do Typos Turn Blog Readers Away?
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008A survey of around 200 respondents by copy editing service, GooseGrade has found that blog readers are somewhat turned off by typos, grammatical errors and poor writing.
Those surveyed - a diverse group of respondents who spent some time reading blogs but generally used “mainstream sources” for news - indicated that finding errors on blogs makes them less likely to share the content they find with others.
Specifically, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors harmed a reader’s opinion of a blog and their willingness to share the content on that blog with others. Interestingly, the survey also found that most respondents believed such errors to be common. Only 20 percent of respondents said it was “not often” or “never” that they found such errors.
Bottom line: try to write well, and strive to eliminate spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. (I will too!)
Sources: Marshall Kirkpatrick, “Errors By Bloggers Kill Credibility & Traffic, Study Finds”, ReadWriteWeb, October 30, 2008, GooseGrade Reader Perception Survey Results
