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The value a website proofreader brings small businesses

A website proofreader find errors on websites and recommend corrections to their client to improve their website. For many small businesses, the idea of hiring someone to tell them everything wrong about their website isn’t something they’re particularly keen on, but the service can actually bring a lot of value.

Impressing potential customers and ranking high in search engines are essential for getting the most out of a small business website. By hiring a website proofreader, you can increase your chances of convincing customers to contact (and pay!) you.

Image by Tyler Franta on Unsplash

Why websites matter so much for small businesses

Every bit of marketing is important for any business, and a website is usually the most expensive marketing tool for small businesses.

Imagine you’re looking for an accountant. When visiting Accountant A’s website, you find it littered with spelling mistakes and odd punctuation choices. Everything else about the business looks good, but you want to keep your options open. You visit Accountant B’s website, which is just as promising but doesn’t have any spelling mistakes at all. Which accountant would you trust to work efficiently for your business?

Typos and spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors can cause a customer to think the business isn’t trustworthy or reliable. They can also affect your ranking by search engines, which is especially damaging for online businesses.

So much work goes into a small business website, so a website proofreader can really help make sure it doesn’t go to waste.

Common website problems that turn away customers

There are all kinds of problems on websites that might turn away prospective customers and clients from your business. You might be worried mostly about tech-related errors, like your website going down, but that doesn’t mean you should forget about the website content.

Common problems customers come across when looking at websites include:

  • Typos
  • Missing words in a sentence
  • Misused punctuation
  • Long strings of periods instead of an ellipsis (…… doesn’t look very professional!)
  • Images overlapping text
  • Broken links, even on the homepage!

All of the above are caught by a website proofreader, whose unfamiliarity with your content is a big advantage for catching all kinds of mistakes.

What a small business website needs to do for you

Any small business website – whether it’s a business card website with one page, a collection of landing pages to show your services, or a website with regular blog posts – needs to attract and interest your visitors.

Your website needs to tell them who you are, what you do, and why you’re the person for them.

So if your small business is trying to show how competent and trustworthy you are, having mistakes can damage that impression before they’ve even considered contacting you. You need to be certain that everything on your website convinces customers to buy from your business.

How working with a website proofreader benefits your small business

A website proofreader will spot errors you didn’t even know existed. Proofreading for small businesses is done carefully, with a proofreader who can diligently correct anything your potential clients might be turned off by.

Working with a website proofreader benefits your small business by ensuring you look more professional. They can:

  • Give you a list of errors to fix
  • Suggest corrections to improve the clarity of your website copy
  • Mark up repetitions and typos

Website proofreading services aren’t there to make you feel bad about your website. They’re there to help your business impress customers and clear up mistakes you don’t have time for.

How I work as a website proofreader

When I proofread websites, I work through a checklist to ensure every part of your website is focused on. Using this checklist, I read through each page before checking other sections most people forget, such as image captions, alt-text, header and footer, and links.

I pull together all of the mistakes I find in a Word Document, highlighting what the problem is, where it is, and my recommended correction. Corrections are handled entirely by my client, or their IT person, so I ensure I’m as clear as possible when recommending how to fix something.

While some website proofreaders prefer to have access to the website to implement corrections themselves, I find many businesses are cautious about who is given access to their websites. By providing my website proofreading report, I can do my job and my client can pick and choose which corrections to make. Sometimes people like what they’ve written, even if it’s grammatically incorrect or looks a bit strange to outsiders, and that’s perfectly okay.

As a bonus to my proofreading, I also compile recommendations for SEO, including resources where needed. This is especially beneficial for small businesses who don’t have a budget for a digital marketer yet.