Editing Business Copy

Editors are not just for books and stories; we’re also essential for businesses. Whether it’s marketing copy, web copy, product descriptions, video captions, or procedure manuals, the writing that is done for your business needs to be edited.

Potential customers are quickly put off by spelling and grammatical errors on business websites, advertisements, and correspondence. Employees can be confused and make mistakes if instructions are not clearly written.

Errors hurt your credibility with customers, employees, and others in your industry.

Errors in copy can lead customers to wonder if you really know your stuff.

So how does a business solve this problem and prevent errors from cropping up in their copy? There are automated tools available that can help, but they’re not infallible. For example, spell check won’t catch if you accidentally type exist instead of exit, or two instead of too. Word processing grammar checkers often introduce errors because the automated system misses nuance in writing. Automatic voice-to-text software can misinterpret speech and create some pretty spectacular errors (such as “drug sales” instead of “direct sales”).

The easiest way around this is to employ an editor or proofreader to check your copy before it goes live.

 Editors are trained to watch for those pesky typos where one word is accidentally replaced with a similar (though incorrect) word. Editors are trained to catch easily misunderstood phrasing or references that may be too niche or jargony. And humans are much better suited to interpreting nuance!

Best of all, an editor can help your business maintain credibility, gain customer’s trust, and communicate clearly and consistently.