Do you have any idea of the impact that a single mistake can have spelling or grammar about your business? No ? Here is a fact that illustrates it perfectly.
An (English) man traveling writes this message to his wife, forgetting a very small letter: “I am having such a wonderful time! Wish you were her…!”. Translated, we have “I’m having such a wonderful time! I wish you were her”.????
Ouch, this man’s relationship may have been broken up because of the little letter “e” which is missing at the end of “her” and which would have read: …that you are there.❤
The same goes for your business, only one mistake can transform the entire meaning of your content and potentially cause you to lose customers if it is in the wrong place. ????
However, we must recognize that we are not perfect, and mistakes can sometimes slip through the cracks of several rereadings.
Facing the same difficulty, I decided to dig into and list the best tools and resources that allow you to avoid or have as few mistakes as possible in the texts. As a bonus, you have a list of platforms that can help you improve your level of the French language.
This will therefore be the subject of this article which will certainly help you in your quest to have faultless texts. ????
Chapter 1: Why is it important to avoid spelling mistakes on your business website?
There are a thousand reasons why you should avoid spelling and grammar errors in your business content. In this part, we will focus on the behavior of customers as well as that of search engine algorithms when faced with typos.
1.1. Spelling Errors Can Cost Your Business Millions in Sales
According to one study from the BBC, it was found that spelling mistakes on websites can cost businesses millions of dollars in sales. ????
The results of the said study showed that a single spelling mistake on an entrepreneur’s website cut sales in half of his business.
But once the problem was fixed, the company’s sales increased twice as much as when the error persisted.
In addition, TightsPlease.co.uk, on one of its product pages, had written ”Tihgts” instead of ”Tights”. This small error led to a drop in sales. The company had to realize this and correct the small typo before their conversion rate recovered to 80%. ????
Source : practicalecommerce
As you can see, spelling mistakes are particularly annoying, especially when they are found in important content that is used, for example, to promote your products or services.
So, do you have a low conversion rate or difficulty engaging your audience? You may need to reread the content on your website to check if you have left any typos lying around. ????
1.2. Spelling mistakes harm the credibility of the company
Brand credibility is a key factor that strongly influences a consumer’s purchasing decision. With this factor, the ability to compete in an ever-growing market is enormous.
Innovator, behavioral scientist and teacher BJ Fogg, creator of the “Fogg Method” of behavior change, says that credibility means that your website is considered super informative and trustworthy. ????
He believes that credibility can be earned through a positive customer experience and that content filled with factual errors harms credibility.
Credibility is one of the most important and difficult assets that a company must develop. Without it, your potential customers will always turn to your competitors who have acquired and developed it.
If I ask you to choose between an iPhone brand phone and an Infinix brand phone (a Chinese brand), I bet you will choose the first brand. Which is quite normal, since the company has made its brand a reference. ????
So, if mistakes are considered by Internet users to be a factor that can negatively affect your credibility, it is in your interest not to have any in your content.
1.3. Spelling mistakes make your business less competitive
The Internet has allowed consumers to access a large number of businesses with a simple search. This results in formidable competition that companies must overcome if they wish to be visible to their customers.
That said, most businesses often fail to consider the impact poor spelling can have on their site. Even if they are ready to invest thousands of euros in marketing strategies like advertisements.
Yet small details can ruin all your marketing efforts. When an Internet user encounters blatant mistakes on your site, it is obvious that he will have an idea of how your staff works.
The most demanding may feel disappointed to the point of not hesitating to close their session on your site.
It is important to keep in mind that at the slightest doubt or factor negatively impacting your credibility, the Internet user will not hesitate to simply click on the back button to view offers from another company. ????
1.4. Spelling mistakes are a bad signal for the SEO of your website
Your website’s SEO is another reason to pay close attention to the spelling and grammar of your content.
As natural language processing and machine learning evolve, search engines put more emphasis on quality when ranking your pages for your keywords. ????
Especially with BERT, Google’s latest major update, Google’s algorithms better understand the contexts of terms, phrases, and content.
Your text will be difficult to understand not only for users, but also for search engines, when words are misspelled.
Indeed, misunderstanding your content can cause search engines to position your content on other keywords only the ones you really want your website to rank on.
Moreover, Google’s John Mueller responded When asked about spelling and grammar in the context of search performance, this is what he said:
”When it comes to spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, I think it’s something that’s a little bit more of a gray area in that on the one hand we have to be able to recognize what a page is about.
And if we can’t recognize that because there are so many errors on the page in the text, then that makes it more difficult.
The other aspect also is that we try to find very high quality content on the web and sometimes it can seem like a page has lower quality content because it has a lot of… like… grammatical and technical errors in the text.
So that’s something where, from my perspective, if you’re aware of those kinds of issues, I would just fix that.
I would almost say…like…spelling and grammar are probably for most websites a higher priority than faulty HTML.
But it’s… I mean… it’s really hard to compare because they’re very different things in that one is more of a technical issue (the HTML side) and the other is more of a programming issue. quality and something that users tend to see so it’s like different things”.
It should be noted that since the beginning of 2011, Google has brought numerous significant changes to its algorithm. Who rewards excellent content by positioning them better at the expense of pages with poor quality content. ????
One of the constant hallmarks of low-quality web page content is nothing other than spelling mistakes and typographical errors.
If content is poorly developed and inadequate to convey meaningful and useful information to readers, it is inherently of little value.
As such, it will likely never be considered expert content and users will likely not stay on the page for long.
This will inevitably affect your bounce rate, which is a factor in ranking pages in the SERPs.
If you are aiming for the first positions in the SERPs, you now know one of the factors that should not be overlooked. ????
1.5. Spelling mistakes can make your business appear unprofessional
Like you, all websites would like to be known as experts in their field. But this can be difficult to do when spelling errors are present in all the content you present to the public.
Poor spelling and grammar can tarnish the professional image of your business.
Although being an expert in your field is not an easy thing, simple misspelled words can be the subject of attacks or criticism against your professionalism.
This is why, in addition to your own skills, always make sure to produce error-free content with simple, concise and well-formulated sentences.
Here are the five reasons why it would be wise to review your copies carefully before throwing them at your audience.
Now let’s move on to some useful tips that can help you avoid leaving typos in your texts.
Chapter 2: 4 tips and 7 tools to avoid spelling mistakes
Writing an article without any mistakes, especially if it is long, is not an easy thing.
The writer must be able to use certain practices in the process of creating his web content to produce high-quality text:
2.1. Adopt the right routine after writing your content
It often happens that mistakes are left behind when actually writing web content and there is nothing wrong with that, even a machine can make mistakes.
The most important step which will allow you to correct all the mistakes in your text is nothing other than proofreading. ????
Obviously, it must be recognized that if simple rereading was enough, you probably wouldn’t be here right now viewing this content.
There is indeed a well-developed routine that you can adopt to optimize your efficiency in truly producing flawless content.
2.1.1. Take a little rest before rereading your article
Stepping away from your content for even 15 or 30 minutes before continuing will help you create some (necessary) distance between the work you just created and the mistakes.
When I talk about moving away, I don’t mean going to consult other sources that you may have missed. ????
The idea is to really clear your mind so you can approach your work again from a new perspective. This will make it easy for you to see what you actually wrote versus what you think you wrote.
So, take a few minutes, hours or days depending on the volume of the text and come back with a fresh head. You will hardly miss the typos!
2.1.2. Read your text aloud
There is little chance of typos remaining in your content if you read it out loud.
Indeed, when you master the subject, your brain can make you believe that your content is perfect by systematically filling in the gaps, especially since the brain reads words in their entirety and not the assembly of letters.
Small test, can you read the following text with some ease? If so, tell me in the comments:
You now understand why it would be wise to have your text read by voice. ????
Also note that according to ImpactBND :
‘’Most errors are easier to detect by the ears than by the eyes. Hence one of the best options to make final corrections to your content is to read them aloud.’’
The end result is that your content will be very high quality overall and free of spelling errors.
2.1.3. Ask other people to proofread your text
As a last resort, having a colleague, friend or staff member proofread your content would be another step towards error-free content.
Sometimes there may not be a spelling mistake, but a word may be misused or missing. Taking several glances is always the best way to spot obvious and less obvious errors.
Preferably, choose someone who has a relatively advanced level in the language of the text. Additionally, invite her to comment on parts where there appear to be errors rather than directly correcting the text.
This option allows you to validate or not the possible suggestions, since there is a chance that the person will misunderstand sections of the text and therefore make bad suggestions. ????
Also be open to criticism because as the old adage says, you never stop learning.
Here’s a little routine that you can put in place to significantly reduce the risk of leaving errors or typos in your content.
2.2. Use spell check tools
The best way to be sure your content is flawless is to go through a spell checker when you finish (including proofreading of course????).
Spelling checkers are a great help, even if they don’t do a 100% perfect job. A good spell checker will show you areas that need corrections and offer suggestions.
There are several free and paid spell checkers, but you should choose what best suits your needs.
Here is a brief overview of a few:
2.2.1. Antidote
Antidote is one of the best software designed specifically to help students and writers with their writing assignments.
The tenth edition of the famous writing assistance software (antidote 10) gives you access to more than 120 new content, functions and interfaces. This tool, available in French and English, offers three main advantages:
Advantage 1: An advanced concealer
The tool is mainly based on a very advanced spelling and grammar correction system.
It corrects a wide variety of errors such as poorly written words, forgotten accents… and even extends its correction functions to:
- The style ;
- La syntaxe ?
- The punctuation ;
- The typology…s.
With this tool, you have an even better chance of ridding your content of most errors.
Advantage 2: Built-in dictionaries
With more than 128,000 integrated words, the tool allows you to search for the true meaning of certain words and the conjugation of certain verbs.
You also have the opportunity to discover the synonymy and antonymy of the words you are looking for.
Advantage 3: Language guides
It is true that if you have never used an antidote, you may find it a little complex. To do this, the tool provides you with a guide to each of its 11 key features.
These guides are designed precisely and in good detail to leave no doubt about the use of antidote.
2.2.2. Language tool
Language tool is an online tool that allows you to write text and check its spelling. Not only do you have the option of using a free version, but you can also use it in over 20 different languages.
The advantage of the paid version of this tool is that you have the ability to check a large number of text characters than you can with the free version. ????
Like several other tools, Language tool is available as an extension that you can download for Chrome, Firefox and others.
2.2.3. Text editing programs: Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, Google Docs
Most text editors like Microsoft Word, Google docs and others have the built-in content correction function.
While these features aren’t completely flawless, they do provide a pretty considerable service in eliminating common mistakes from your content. ????
Generally, mistakes are underlined as you type your text. If this is not the case, you can directly activate the functionality using the following steps.
For Microsoft Word, the correction service is accessible in the “Revision” tab then in the “Grammar and Spelling” section.
When you type your text and click on the “Grammar and Spelling” section, Word provides you with a summary of the spelling and grammar errors made followed by correction suggestions.
If instead you use LibreOffice Writer, the spell checker can be accessed by clicking on the Tools item, located in the horizontal bar at the top. You will then need to select Spelling and Grammar from the context menu.
In Google docs, the functionality is available in “Tool” then in the “Spelling and Grammar Check” window.
2.2.4. Writing
As you will discover, Scribens has two main functionalities:
- The spell check function;
- And the dictionary function.
In both the free and paid versions, users can have access to both features.
Dispose of oneself when writing color-based codes to report the type of error he finds in your content. ✨
The tool uses:
- The color red to indicate grammatical errors;
- The color green to highlight conjugation errors;
- The color yellow to suggest corrections;
- The color blue to indicate punctuation and typology errors.
Even though this tool can easily miss errors in your content, it is quite good at detecting gross mistakes in your content.
2.2.5. spell checker
Without downloading any software or plugin to your computer, you can easily access the Spellchecker service online for free.
Spellchecker is accessible in most major languages and the first step in using this tool is registering on the site, then you choose your language of use by clicking on the ”change” or ”changer” option. ”. ????
2.2.6. Reverse
Reverso is best known for being an online translation service offering a dictionary and pronunciation aids.
The company also offers language services such as grammar and spelling checking. It’s easy to improve sentences, grammar and word choice with Reverso.
Reverso works via:
- A web browser;
- A Google Chrome plugin;
- And a Google Play or iPhone application.
This tool also works offline and you can use voice typing in the app if writing is not suitable for you.
2.2.7. Good Father
Good Boss is a fairly easy tool to use, as all the user has to do is copy and paste the text, then activate the ‘check text’ button.
Only French text can be checked using this tool and you can expect corrections regarding:
- The context ;
- Spelling;
- The punctuation ;
- Etc.
The tool not only makes your text more refined, but it also offers users the possibility of downloading the corrected content as they go.
The use of these tools and the tips given in this chapter only applies to those who have a sufficient level of French. Otherwise, you will always end up with typos. ????
If you need to improve your writing, here are other resources that can help.
Chapter 3: The 12 best resources for learning or improving your French
We did not come into the world with a perfect knowledge of French. It’s about a skill that needs to be worked on to have a satisfactory level.
In addition to spelling correction tools, there are language learning platforms that will allow you to improve your level in French or your writing language.
This gives you the assurance of writing a text with fewer mistakes, even if you have to run it through correction tools to make it more qualitative.
Here is the list of learning platforms:
4.1. FrançaisFacile.com
This platform accessible to everyone for free offers an opportunity to learn six different languages in addition to French.
It first has a functionality that allows you to test the user’s level of French in order to provide them with the appropriate courses.
What is more interesting, users have the possibility of receiving lessons as well as spelling and grammar exercises via their email address.
In addition to all this, forums and discussion rooms are made available to FrançaisFacile.com students.
4.2. Voltaire Project
This online teaching platform, with more than 6 million users, is based on a Memory Anchoring technology. It ensures that its students learn the French language quickly and efficiently.
Thanks to its effectiveness, the tool can count on the support of 5,000 establishments and organizations as well as 1,400 partner companies. Which makes him a reference in learning the French language. ????
Even if it is fully paid, the Projet Voltaire platform offers a free user test to anyone who is interested in it.
4.3. Verbling
Verbling is a language teaching platform on which you can freely choose your course teacher.
Whichever teacher you choose, they must offer you a free trial lesson, according to the platform’s regulations.
Through its superb features, verbling offers students benefits such as:
- A classroom ;
- A homework schedule;
- A memory card to review lessons;
- A filing system for course materials;
- Etc.
In addition, this platform offers you the possibility of integrating discussion forums in which you will be able to present your exercises and obtain opinions and critiques.
Of all the language learning resources out there, Verbling is one of the best options. ✨
4.4. LangCorret
LangCorret, a paid and free writing community, allows users to comment on or edit the content of others.
In other words, it is a platform on which writers submit their articles to a large community so that they can work on them.
If you want to present a super quality article or improve your writing level, LangCorrect is a platform that may suit you well.
4.5. Forvo
Forvo aims to improve the oral communication of individuals across their cultures. Equipped with more than 390 languages in the world, this platform allows anyone to explore the pronunciations of millions of words in their language.
Forvo also offers you e-learning courses in French, English and Spanish in addition to a group with a wide range of common words in your language. Some features are not available for free.
4.6. InnerFrench
InnerFrench is the paid language course platform on which the founder offers courses via podcasts, videos and others.
This teaching platform, designed especially for French people, bases its teaching on culture.
The courses, followed by lessons learned from reading, offered by authors like Hugo, will help you raise your level in French.
If you are a writer looking to cultivate your intellectual level in French, InnerFrenc is the best platform I can recommend.
4.7. italki
Not so long ago, it was really difficult, if not impossible, to practice French without traveling to France.
Fortunately, paid tools like italki have made it possible to connect with native speakers from all over the world to practice or take personalized lessons on Skype.
The good news is that Skype French lessons via italki are incredibly cheap compared to other solutions.
All the frustrations with payments and scheduling are also handled brilliantly by italki, making organizing sessions very easy and stress-free.
4.8. TV5 World
TV5 Monde is an international television channel in French, which offers its own language courses and practices under the “French language” tab on their official website.
From digital libraries to dictionaries and video lessons, this website is perfect for beginners who aren’t sure where to start. Not all features on this platform are free! ????
Using this platform can be a real asset for all writers looking to improve their skills in the French language.
4.9. Glossika
This is another very unique paid product that improves your fluency through a highly repetitive “listen and repeat” approach.
Courses on glossika are fully paid, but the platform offers all its users a seven-day free trial.
According to users, it is one of the most useful tools for training yourself to better oral comprehension of French. ????
Like many other platforms, they have chosen to transform Glossika into an interactive subscription SaaS product, that is to say in the form of an application.
Two major advantages arise from Glossika’s adoption of the SaaS model:
- The software tracks your progress and keeps you informed of your progress;
- The paid version gives you access to all languages. This won’t really benefit you if you only learn a specific language.
It’s definitely not a conventional course, but you’ll be surprised how effective it is in improving your French proficiency if you use it daily.
4.10. FrenchPod101
This is an excellent platform for paid French lessons in the form of audio podcasts and downloadable lessons.
In addition to podcast-style lessons, you’ll find:
- Videos ;
- A vocabulary database and dictionary;
- Grammatical explanations;
- And various other useful features.
With this platform, you can request assistance from your teachers at any time who will also respond quickly to your requests.
4.11. Lingoda
Lingoda is a great alternative to italki if you are learning French and want to a control as well as a more “structured” course. This platform is entirely paid.
You have the option to choose individual lessons based on very practical topics and small classes for exercises.
It is also a very inexpensive teaching platform with a monthly subscription plan.
4.12. French Pimsleur
Pimsleur is a household name and one of the most famous French courses. Even though some features are paid, you can get free courses. ????
It’s about a proven method, a research-based, audio-only program that lets you speak quickly using spaced repetition of phrases.
Pimsleur remains a reliable and very effective tool for language learning. One of rare teaching methods with solid research behind it and proven results.
So ! We are at the end of our list of useful resources to improve your level of French language proficiency.
In summary !
Creating texts regularly without the slightest mistake is a difficult task to say the least, but one that turns out to be one of great necessity.
Indeed, if you want people to view you as an expert in your field and use your website as a resource, then you need to present an impeccable and professional image. ????
A big part of this picture is making sure that your content is free from spelling and grammar errors.
And to achieve this, I shared with you in this article the good practices to adopt and some necessary tools to use.
As a bonus, you also have resources that you can leverage to improve your French language skills.
Have I missed any resources or tools that you think are necessary or important? Feel free to share it with me in the comments. ????
