Poor grammar on websites scares 59% away

This article appeared on the Real Business website yesterday.  Real food for thought!

Fifty-nine per cent of Britons would not use a company with poor grammar on its website. Have you checked yours recently?

A new study has revealed that 59 per cent of Britons would not use a company that had obvious grammatical or spelling mistakes on its website or marketing material, and 82 per cent would not use a company that had not correctly translated its material into English.
The research, conducted by Global Lingo, polled 1,029 UK adults on their online purchasing and browsing habits.
Those taking part were asked whether or not they tended to notice the quality of spelling or grammar or a company’s website – 74 per cent said yes.
When asked whether bad grammar or obvious spelling errors would stop them buying from the website, 59 per cent said it would, with the majority claiming that they "wouldn't trust" the company to provide a good quality service. Others would be put off due to an obvious lack of care, or would consider the company to be unprofessional.
"The fact that such a high percentage wouldn't trust a company with poor spelling or grammar just goes to show how crucial it is that businesses make the most of every opportunity, especially in these tough economic times," says Richard Michie, marketing and technology director at Global Lingo.
"You only have a short amount of time to make an impression on a potential customer, and if your website or ad is riddled with grammatical errors, it’s not going to place you in a favourable light. Competition is tough, and if you don’t take the care to present yourself in as professional a light as possible, you may well be losing yourself important business."
When consumers were asked if they had ever come across a website that was clearly translated from a foreign website into English, which then read inadequately with bad grammatical mistakes, 31 per cent of individuals admitted that this had indeed happened to them. But the impact is dramatic: just 4 per cent of this number then continued to use the website or purchase goods from it.
This works both ways, so if you are doing business internationally, ensure that your foreign-language website is mistake-free.

Tips for working from home

Marketing expert Marc Gordon offers these tips for success:

• Have a designated work area.  Forget the kitchen table - have a room with a door to call your own.  Train your family to know you are unavailable when the door is closed.
• Keep set hours.  It can be easy to take a few hours off in the afternoon, then work till midnight.  The problem is that this can lead to you working too many hours or not enough, resulting in either exhaustion of a lack of business growth.  Try to keep your hours in line with the rest of your industry.
• Have a "second office".  A change of scenery can make you more productive.  So grab the laptop and head off to a coffee shop or local library for some creative thinking.
• Go to networking events.  It's easy to become solitary working from home, making you unmotivated and uninspired.  Meeting new people will not only keep you sharp, it may even bring in new business.
• Schedule your time.  Set aside blocks of time throughout the day and week for work, chores, meals, errand and "me time".

More tips from Gordon are on his website: www.marcgordon.ca and his online show: marctv.net.

Say what you mean

Most confusing heading in the local paper this week: "Price of price is extortionate."

On a more helpful note a letter to The Times, from Canon Richard Lindley no less, offered the following help for confusing similar words:

"My recommendation used to be to think of 'advice'/'advise', which are pronounced differently.  That was my advice that was what I advised."

This holds for licence/license, practice/practise too.  The c is for nouns and the s for verbs.  Easy when you know how!

I didn't see it but apparently a tweeter from the BBC accidentally typed and sent out the phrase 'Margaret Thatcher dies following a strike', whilst an Irish TV channel's website was advertising a broadband provider whose tagline read 'the wait is over'. Nobody's fault but so easy to see how that happened.

There was also an unfortunately autocorrection at the Los Angeles Times because the computer would not allow the sentence to begin with 'but' so corrected to 'Butt cracks eventually appeared in Lamb's persona.'

Best of all though, the massive advertising campaing for a company calling itself, 'Reliability: always upholding the highest standards for every detal'. 

Apparently the best place to see this kind of thing is on TV subtitles, resulting in "turkeys are lining up against the border of Syria' (BBC) and apparently ITV asked a headteacher if 500 executions (instead of exclusions) meant her school is out of control.  I'll be watching (and reading) with added interest in future.

Now are you confused?

Some good examples here as to why writing english is hard - from a notice board this week.

Lead rhymes with read, but lead rhymes with read.

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
The accountant at the music store records records of the records.

If GH can stand for P as in Hiccough 

If OUGH stands for O as in Dough 

If PHTH stands for T as in Phthisis 

If EIGH stands for A as in Neighbour 

If TTE stands for T as in Gazette 

If EAU stands for O as in Plateau

Then the right way to spell POTATO should be: GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU

Not quite what was meant?

Spotted in the local paper this week:

"A firm's account manager who fiddled the books to enable him to steal more than £180,000 has been warned he is 'almost invariably' facing a prison sentence." 

Has this happened before or did the reporter misread his/her shorthand for 'almost inevitably'?

A report on an inquest, despite being sad, made me smile.  The deceased "underwent the operation, to repair damage cause by a tumour in his naval cavity and skull".  This time I feel sure it was finger trouble and the reporter meant nasal. 

More on the health front meant that a young lad was reported to have had "an operation to remove my Gaul bladder".  I had no idea that one of our body parts was French!

At least it kept me amused.

Richard Branson's best "tool"

One of the posts of the week was about Richard Branson and asked what he couldn't work without.  His comment was: "There are some people who seem to be able to do everything themselves. I am a great believer in the art of delegation and in sharing the load to make everyone more productive."  The "thing" he couldn't do without was his assistant.

Clearly he is doing something right but even the smallest business can delegate if they use a virtual assistant!