To My Fellow Bloggers…
Think back to when you met your spouse or your best friend for the very first time. I’ll bet you can remember exactly how that first impression of them made you feel. Warm, comfortable, maybe even loved right from the start.
Now think about a time you had a very negative first impression of someone. I’m guessing you still remember how that felt, too. You probably avoided that person, if you could, because you didn’t want to repeat that experience.
We’ve all heard the expression ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression.’ It means that our initial contact with someone leaves an imprint, either positive or negative (or sometimes neutral), that stays with us and informs our choices about whether or not we want to interact with that person again.
(I know some of you probably had bad first impressions of your spouse, or vice versa, and then Cupid worked his magic and you lived happily every after. This makes you the exception that proves the rule.)
In the online world, we form those impressions based on what we see on a web page or maybe hear on a podcast. Good first impressions bring us back to blogs or websites that we enjoy, while sites that leave bad first impressions get kicked to the curb.
So you are probably wondering, with all the elements that go into creating an online presence, how do you make sure you end up on the ‘good impression’ list and not on the ‘bad impression’ one?
One sure way to avoid the ‘bad’ list is to make sure your content is free of mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar. Research has proven that readers form negative opinions about writers based on the number and type of errors in their copy.
In one study, college students were asked to evaluate a potential colleague based only on an email. When the message contained many grammatical errors, students saw the writer as less conscientious, intelligent and trustworthy compared to the same message without any errors.
Launching a blog is not easy. Well, at least it wasn’t for me. It’s definitely been one of the biggest tangles I’ve ever wrangled. For me, the toughest part has been learning all the technical details of building a website, followed closely by learning how to write for the web. Keywords and hashtags and widgets. Oh, my! There is so much to think about besides just getting my thoughts and feelings down in print. And don’t even get me started on the ‘What if nobody reads it?’ anxieties that have plagued me throughout the entire process.
One thing I didn’t have to worry about was making sure my posts were free of errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I am a total Word Nerd. I cannot turn off the perpetual proofreader in my brain even when I want to. Like when I’m reading someone else’s blog post, really getting into the writer’s message, and then suddenly, there it is. A misspelled word. Or a comma splice. Or ‘there’ when it should be ‘their.’ It’s like a neon sign flashing in the night and, like it or not, it shifts my focus from the message to the mistake.
And if there are lots of mistakes? Well, reading that is just downright painful to me. It’s like biting into what looked like a chocolate chip cookie and finding out it’s really oatmeal raisin. I feel let down. Definitely a bad impression.
I am not saying I never make mistakes. Oh, heavens, no! But I am extra conscious of them, so I tend to catch them as I make them. (That being said, if you find any mistakes on this site, please, please leave a comment so I can fix them.)
Of course, not every reader is a word nerd like me. Research also shows that readers’ negative opinions are less likely if the writer and the reader know each other personally, but how many blog writers know all of their readers that well?
Best friends or not, we want our readers to enjoy what we write, but we also want them to find us credible. So that makes it super important to make sure we are getting it right every time we publish a post or a page. If our readers have to work too hard to mentally correct too many errors in our copy, they won’t stick around very long. Grammatical errors undermine our readers’ faith in us. There’s not much point in offering advice or promoting our favorite brands in our blog if our readers don’t see us as trustworthy authorities on our topics.
But what if you’re good at expressing your ideas and not so great at following all of those pesky rules for spelling, punctuation, and grammar? Are you just doomed to fail?
No, my friend, you are not. Because you have me! All those rules are ingrained in my brain, and I’ve got your back.
I have a degree in English and Education from Shippensburg University, but instead of getting a teaching job, I went to work as a reporter for two newspapers in Pennsylvania and then as a copy editor for a paper in Virginia. As a freelance proofreader and copy editor, I’ve worked on everything from press releases to video scripts to employee handbooks. I’ve also worked with a best-selling romance author on six of her novels and spent several years in high demand as a beta reader (proofreader/copy editor) on two different fan fiction websites.
In other words, I know my stuff, and I can’t wait to help you make your writing shine!
Sign up with your email and I’ll proofread one post for FREE! Once you post the corrected copy, I believe you’ll get more positive comments and maybe even more followers. Try me and see. What have you got to lose?
If you like the results, I can continue to help you wrangle the grammatical tangles in your writing for a flat monthly rate of $99.95 per month for unlimited posts, or on a per post basis of $7 per post, whichever works best for you. As a new client, you will also receive access to my resource library of helpful hints and tips on how to improve your writing and boost your own proofreading skills.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. A good one is priceless and all the money in the world can’t erase a bad one. With me as your personal word nerd, you can be sure your copy will make that good impression that keeps your readers coming back for more. So sign up below with your email and let’s get to work!