A Blog Blog, Question Mark II: Avoiding Writing Mistakes in Your Blog

You know how simple it can be to use a blog to add quick, easily-digestible content to your site to keep visitors coming back. But, you can just as easily turn people off from your site if your writing is filled with spelling and grammatical errors. These errors are easy to maek, and everyone does it from time to time, unfortunately. But they can undermine your credibility and make readers think you’re just a big dummy–even though, chances are, your business and its related website have nothing at all to do with spelling or grammar (and, chances are, they often make the same mistakes themselves).

 
You? Of course not!

This may just be the “English-major-spelling-and-grammar-Nazi” in me showing through, but there are many easily confused/misused words in our dumb language that I notice in writing all the time (billboards, business signs, newspapers, everything—as my wife says to me: “You copy edit life”). Here are just a few of the greatest—ungreatest?—hits:

#1) You’re and Your: This is one that’s actually pretty easy to fix, if you take the time to think about it while you’re writing. Since “you’re” is a contraction of “you are,” any time you’re unsure which to use in your writing, just replace the confounding word with “you are.” If it sounds weird, then it should be “your.” If not, “you’re” is correct.

#2) Their and There and They’re: This is a common problem for the same reason as #1—they all sound alike. But, this one doesn’t have as easy a fix. “Their” denotes ownership or possession by a person or group (I suppose you can think in a British cockney accent, and make the E and I be “he and I”—“’e and I, guvna”—to remember a group of people). “There” denotes a place—since it’s close to “here,” which is also a place, that may help. And “they’re” is another contraction—if using “they are” sounds correct in its place, then it’s correct.

#3) Should have and Should of: “Should have” is always correct, but because of the way it sounds when we talk, “should of” sometimes seems more accurate. I can’t really think of a helpful hint for this one, so just remember that it is always “should have.” Or “would have” or “could have.” Never “_____ of.”

Keep these handy hints in mind when writing blog posts for your company’s website. Again, your blogs don’t have to be anything big or fancy—no one’s expecting them to be. But, improper grammar can be a huge turn off for any reader, no matter how interesting or relevant your blog may be.

There are about a thousand more grammatical gaffes I could add to the list (like I said, I majored in English), but that would take far too long. Chances are you’d stop reading after number three anyway; lists like this get really boring, really fast. If only it dragons or something to make it more interesting.

 
Not that kind of dragons, dagnabbit!

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