Are typos costing you $$$

Is there anything more off-putting than a glaring typo? They seem to leap off the page and snatch your focus. Questions instantly form in your mind and credibility comes into question. How could someone make such a simple mistake? How many times have you visited a website looking to purchase something and a typo stopped you dead in your tracks?

It's all about CREDIBILITY

There is a bagel shop in the city where I live and it's right across the street from a gas station I frequently use. The shop has large windows that are covered with window wrap signage. While you are filling up your car with gasoline you can't help but notice the bagel store and their signs with delicious looking bagels that are "frehsly made". FREHSLY MADE ... in big letters. It's repeated numerous times on both sides of the store that face the street. Unfortunately for the bagel shop, their sign company didn't spell check the massive window wrap they printed. Any time I go to that bagel shop or the gas station, I can't help but think of the "frehsly made" bagels. How many potential customers have noticed that sign and decided to go somewhere else? If you can't spell, can you really make a good bagel?

You only get one chance to make a first impression. For most businesses that first impression happens online, with your website. Someone is looking for information, looking for help, looking to purchase what you sell. A simple typo can derail the entire site visit and instantly dissolve your credibility. Instead of quickly converting that user to a happy visitor and customer, you have someone questioning your company's credibility and knowledge. A typo can turn you from a trustworthy source to a secondary thought. That little typo gets lodged in the viewer's mind and any future visit to your website brings back the memory of that misplaced letter. 

Small mistakes, HUGE costs

Most people have gone shopping and spotted sale tags and online prices that are obviously wrong, a missing zero, a misplaced decimal. It happens ... at the store owner's expense. In 2006 an airline posted flights from Toronto to Cyprus for $39 instead of $3900. Over 2000 people took advantage of that great deal before the company fixed the mistake. It cost them over $7 million dollars in lost revenue.

What happens when a simple typo completely changes the meaning of a word? A travel agency posted an advertisement with a single misplaced letter, an 'r' instead of an 'x'. They lost 80% of their business over that little mistake. The mistake ... the ad was promoting "erotic vacations" instead of "exotic vacations". The company sued the print advertising company for $19 million dollars in damages.

How to prevent typos

The problem with typos is they can be very hard, almost impossible, to spot. Your brain is wired to take linguistic short cuts and quickly match shape patterns with letters, words and phrases you know. There are a few simple ways to help catch those pesky typos though:

1. Read out loud and slowly
2. Read every word
3. Have someone else proofread it

How can PageProofer help you with typos? 

By adding PageProofer to your website, you can have multiple people checking your website for potential errors. If they spot a typo they can instantly notifying the people that need to make a change, without delay, before it costs you visitors, reputation and business.