The importance of good editing

Many smaller businesses have quite a relaxed view of the quality of material they put out into the world. After all, the odd spelling mistake isn?t going to stop people wanting to do business with them, right? In a content-driven market, that’s a mistake.

I?m sure that?s what the Labour Party thought back in October when they began their campaign to win back Scottish votes. The headline banner in their video spelled ?Genertaion? instead of ?Generation? and had to be pulled quickly. Not fast enough to avoid a little ridicule and political point scoring though.

While an easy mistake to make, it?s also easy to avoid. As a writer, I always leave my work overnight if the deadline allows and edit after a sleep or two. I find I notice far more mistakes than you would writing and then editing right away.

Next, it?s always useful to have someone else run their eyes over the work before publishing. It is very easy to miss something when you?re in the middle of it and a fresh pair of eyes is a good way to pick up mistakes before they end up in the public domain.

It?s surprising how many companies view editing and error-checking as a cost and not an investment. When pitching my editing services to businesses around Plymouth or further into Cornwall, I am often faced with opposition citing spellchecker or internal editing. That?s fine if your people have the skills and the time to do it properly.

A quick look at these pins will show you how easy it is for businesses and individuals to miss an obvious mistake. While many of these are from the U.S., we aren?t much better.

Editing and credibility

For a business to be successful it has to be a credible investment for both backers and customers. If you present a poor quality public face, you aren?t going to be taken seriously. After all, if you can?t get a simple thing like the spelling or grammar right on any of your content, are you going to deliver the standard of service your customers expect?

Put yourself in place of your customer. If you were vetting two suppliers and one had some pretty bad brochure material, misspellings on their website and their grammar was all over the place and the other didn?t, who would you rather do business with?

Considering how cheap editing is, it?s a no brainer! From as little as ?10 a page, you could make sure you don?t end up with a red face like the Labour Party or lose business because you make a simple but fundamental error. It?s fast, easy and cheap so why would you not take advantage of it?