For a long time Google has been working hard on improving the quality of its search results with a number of algorithm updates.
One of the things that can indicate a lower quality website or article to Google is bad spelling.
Spelling for Google
Google wants to give people searching for information the best quality results. For example, if someone has written an article on a particular topic littered with spelling mistakes and someone else has posted an article on the same topic that has no spelling errors, which do you reckon Google thinks has had the most time spent on it?
Spelling for visitors
While some people may not notice any spelling errors on your website, they may stick out like a sore thumb to others. Let’s say you have a website selling your business consultancy services at £100 per hour. Do you think people would be happy to contact you if your site was full of basic spelling errors?
Correct spelling is just part of the overall quality picture of an article or text on your website. It pays to take the time to get it right both in terms of how Google views your website and what potential customers think of it.
Other content quality guidelines
It’s not just spelling that matters to Google in terms of rating content, there are a number of other guidelines too, including:
Trust
Trust is a very important online issue. When you write an article on a topic what indicators are there that people should trust the information you’ve given? For example, if you’ve got a landscape gardening business and post a blog article on your website about landscaping products, there’s more likelihood readers will trust what you’re saying.
Balance
Articles that only focus on one side of the story aren’t necessarily good for readers. However, balanced articles that look at the pros and cons of certain things or both sides of an argument may be considered better quality by Google and readers alike.
Specifics
Is your content vague or does it actually go into some useful detail on the subject matter?
Comparison
It’s a good idea to read other articles on a topic before writing your own. If the quality of others is high, that should be your benchmark rather than just quickly trying to churn out an article which lacks the style and substance of those already available.
For a list of 23 content quality questions you need to ask yourself, visit Search Engine Land
Image credit: sittered
You make a great point!
These days, there is no excuse for bad spelling; especially online. Most browsers have plugins or extensions that spot mistakes. WordPress has a spell checker built in, too.
Even so, we see basic spelling errors regularly on blogs and as you say, it’s hard for search engines to get a handle on your post, if they are spelt incorrectly.
Thanks.
Jim Connolly recently posted..Improve how you communicate, using these simple tips!
Hi Jim, thanks for taking the time to comment and retweet this post – much appreciated. Like you say there’s no excuse really. I hired a copywriter a couple of years ago for a project and they didn’t even run a spell check on Word before they sent me the documents. All their mistakes were underlined in red, so I don’t know how they didn’t see them!