Why you shouldn’t correct typos
You shouldn't correct typos.
Wait a moment,Luc
In your article "What’s the best way to be a blog beast?" you said if your content is plagued by poor grammar, people will probably think twice about the quality of your products or services.
Making spelling mistakes looks silly and unprofessional.
True, I said that and I still believe that. So what do I mean when I say, "You shouldn't correct typos."?
When do you correct typos?
While you are writing the blog post and in my case with the help of ProWritingAid, an online writing editor and personal writing coach. The application cleans up virtually all types of write-ups by identifying grammar and spelling mistakes, plagiarized content, and contextual errors.
When do we not?
When we go back into every blog post to look for and correct spelling and grammatical errors, then we are far less productive than we can be.
Let's say we correct a blog post in our WordPress website...
You need to login to your WordPress admin page and search for that blog post that has typos in it.
Change a couple of characters and re-read the specific paragraph and sentence so it sounds and looks great.
Finally, you can hit that update button.
Then you can get back to the actual work that adds measurable impact to your goal; creating valuable content for your readers.
Is this really worth the time?
In the end
According to CoSchedule, when you have a nitpicky mindset, one that sweats the small stuff, you will be less productive.
And did you really catch all those typos you made?
Busy marketers have to make the most of every minute we have. There’s always too much to do, and not enough time to get it all done. However, faced with a multitude of competing demands, it's easy to work on the wrong things. If we’re not careful, that can lead to wasting effort on projects that drive incremental improvements.
Focus on nothing but the work that benefits your target audience (and your company) in the biggest way possible.
All the best,
Luc
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About The Author
lucbizz
I’m Luc Dermul, a Belgian online entrepreneur living in “the big apple of Flanders” Antwerp
Commenting find myself correcting typos after the fact constantly. I work off my phone a lot, and my “fat” fingers get in the way.
I totally see your point, and will make an effort to not go back and correct my work that I’ve already published.
Thank you for helping me see the light!
Hi Michelle,
I know what you mean with “fat” fingers…I am victim of it too. And of course obvious typos you correct immediately but before you hit that publish button. A way I use to check my writings is reading it paragraph by paragraph starting from the end of my blog post.
Thanks for your comment 🙂
I think your point is well considered! As in my studio work, what I recommend is that we fix what distracts, and leave the rest alone. Yes, typos all over the place detract from my trust of the writer’s information. But now and then, it just tells me that like me, they are busy getting MORE good content created. One thing of course that we should always correct… links!
Hi Judy,
Yes, your links in your blog posts is something you need to check always. Thanks for this addition 🙂
I think you have a point to a certain extent. But I am of the opinion that you in fact should go back to review your post in between and correct typos and possibly poor language. Yes, I agree with you that you need to balance your time to where it matters more. But you need to be careful to produce a lot of content with a lot of typos or spelling errors. I know myself from visiting websites with typos and spelling errors, I tend to leave the website and look for another.
But, in the end a good article underlining the importance of using your valuable time to where it matters the most.
Hi Roy ,
I fully agree with you if your content is plagued by poor grammar, people will probably leave ,so would I , but as I said above ,you should do that check before you hit that publish button and if you are like me not native to the English with the help of an online writing editor like ProWritingAid
Thanks for your comment 🙂
I have used ProWriting Aid for the last month. It has been extremely helpful. I learned English when I was very young but still, I am not a native speaker and I can make mistakes (well, native speakers make mistakes too). ProWriting Aid also gives you very useful style tips and helps make your article more readable. It’s true that you shouldn’t check for mistakes all the time while you are writing an article. These are details that you can easily correct when you’ve finished writing the article. Writing helpful and insightful content is the most important thing. All other things can be taken care of later.
Hi Horatius,
I am not a native speaker either so I use ProWritingAid as well ?
Thanks for your comment ?