What's wrong with this headine?

 

A recent BBC report revealed that spelling mistakes cost British business millions of pounds in online sales every year. Poor spelling, incorrect grammar, even simple typos can mean the difference between a customer clicking "Buy" and moving on to check out your competitors. Meanwhile, in print marketing, a simple spelling error can cost you more than just lost sales... it can cost you a complete reprint too.

Not every spelling mistake is as easy to spot as this one...

Here are two big reasons why so many spelling and typographical errors find their way online:

• Spellcheck. It's not infallible. Homonyms, English versus American spelling, grammatical inconsistencies - there are all kinds of errors spellcheck misses. It's a great tool, but no substitute for a good old-fashioned dictionary.
• While there are a great many talented copywriters, web and print designers and marketing specialists out there, not many of them are trained proofreaders. They're more about big ideas than minute details. Which is great... until the minute details start costing you money.

As well as being an experienced copywriter, I'm also a fully qualified proofreader. So even if you've got all your words in order... before you send them out into the big, bad world to be scrutinised, criticised or even bowdlerised, let me take a look at them first. It could save you a costly or embarrassing mistake down the line.