Does spelling and grammar matter in SEO? Yes, it does matter. Even though blogging isn’t something that has to be perfect, being understood is extremely important. Every blogger brings to the table their own blog voice, and that includes their own style of writing.
This is influenced by the blogger’s past education and the individual’s own decisions in learning how to read, write, and speak. Some bloggers may have grown up with learning disorders or their primary language is different. However, in the world of blogging, if you’re putting your words out there for the world to read, then you’re trying to get feedback.
If you’re not using fair grammar, then you’ve just made it that much harder for another person to understand, especially if they have a learning disorder, or whose primary language is different. There’s really no excuse. Examples of common grammar issues:
- Long run on sentences
- Lack of proper punctuation
- Awkward sentence structure
- Using the wrong word for meaning or emphasis
- Using prepositions incorrectly
- Using the incorrect verb tense
- Mixing up wrong homonyms and homophones (example: bark as tree bark, or bark as a dog bark, OR there, their, and they’re)
Spelling and grammar do matter even if you’re a blogger that has little ambition to becoming the top dog in your niche. You are STILL trying to reach people. The spelling, some people can forgive, but sentences that make very little sense tend to draw a big question mark from people. It’s very difficult for anyone to give feedback on an article they have trouble understanding.
For those just trying to play the SEO game just to gain money from Adsense or other types of advertising, you eventually will lose out to sites that are creating better content.
For those bloggers with good intentions that are providing great content, you should be going back to older posts and editing them to improve them. In fact, Kimberly Castleberry mentions some cool tools to help bloggers with grammar and spelling. Language barriers are just an excuse. Learning disorders are an excuse. There are bloggers in terrible situations, like disabilities, that do better than many of the great bloggers out there.
If you want to reach a lot of people, you’ve got to put that extra effort to giving your users a quality experience. Matt Cutt’s actually talked about this is a short video answering the question to “Do spelling and grammar matter when evaluating content and site quality?”
Remember – Content is King, and the Visitors are Queen. Their feedback is considered as important as the content by the search engines. Remember, in the end, it’s the visitors looking for the content, sharing the content, and commenting.
Some people are really nice, and won’t tell you a thing if there is something wrong. Others may give you some harsh criticism or some constructive criticism. If your reaction is to be snarky with them or get offended, then you don’t care about your readers.
Do yourself and your blog a favor – think about your readers for once.
Do you have problems writing? Do you use any tools to help you with your spelling and grammar issues? What tools do you use?
Nice article, and yes i agree with your words “Content is King and Visitors are Queen.”
This is very interesting and I would agree with you, if you are writing about something that could be misspelt then I would include those words as well.
A couple of years ago I wrote a post about “spectacles”, but I spelt it “specticles” by mistake, I still get a lot of traffic from Google because so many people misspell that particular word. In fact I wrote another post about the subject and spelt the word correctly and it doesn’t get a quarter of the traffic that my previous article does. 🙂
That’s interesting in your case… did you at least change it to the correct spelling and at least keep the other old URL the same? A lot of people can get over minor spelling issues and I can see where people overlooked that one. (lol)
I love this post Nile! There are a number of different issues that come under this one banner. First the obvious of spelling and grammar which you and Matt in his video address so well. I manually approve every comment and pretty regularly correct spelling and grammar (unless it’s obvious English is not their first language then I try to leave as much in tact as possible) and change the name when someone refers to me by the wrong one. 🙂
But there’s also the point you referenced about thinking of our readers and when it comes to creating content beyond spelling and grammar there’s also tone and intention. Like most newbies when I first began blogging I looked to follow the example of the gurus and I remember this one course I took where the expert said to “write for readers like you’re writing for 4th graders because most have the attention span of gnats.” I really struggled with that for a good while because after all here was a guy who was successful so it must be true on some level, right? Finally I had to come to terms with the fact I do not want to write for 4th graders (or gnats). I want to write for smart, independent people who are passionate about creating their own life experience. If that means I write or a smaller group of people, that really is okay with me.
Along the lines of poor spelling and especially poor grammar are articles that are obviously spun. It is obvious an article is spun when it reads something like-
“Anyone who’s carried out a number of damage the baking knows the baking powdered ingredients along with the baking soda. A lot of people ask around this distinction of course, if these people interchangeable?”
It makes the article completely unreadable.
You’re exactly right. Regardless of the tone one sets with a blog, more formal or conversational, proper grammar and spelling go a long way towards effective communication. Nobody wants to read several paragraphs of poorly written content.
You are right about the concern about spelling mistakes, most of newbies do such type of mistake. If any blog consists spelling and grammar mistakes then it would spoil the reputation of that particular blog. Every blogger should concentrate at their grammar because it will attract the readers and make them feel good while reading. Thanks for sharing this post. You made me remember this stuff again.
Hi Nile,
I agree 100%. I know we are connecting with many people of different cultures and languages and I try to remember that but sometimes it is obvious they have not tried to form their sentences to make sense. I use a spell checker and grammar checker and even then I know sometimes I miss but it is going to happen to all of us sometimes.
Have a great day. Monna
Before I say anything, I have to thank you for sharing such a great article. Nowadays, many people do not pay attention to spelling and grammar in SEO. Even though bloggers take care of the grammar when writing an article, there are a lot of errors in the comments section.
For tools, I don’t use any tools for checking my grammar because I don’t believe any software can proofread as good as humans. So, I do the proofreading myself only.
Nice and informative post
First of all i would like you to congratulate on choosing such interesting topic. I think spellings and grammar are very important in general as well as in matters of SEO.too. Content is very important and is the key to any website or blog’s success. It is through content that visitors would understand or gain information from a site.
What if the content itself is not correct or meaning less. It would directly effect the website status. Not posting anything on your blog is better than providing visitors with wrong information. This is the motto I strictly follow. So if we could give perfect information on our site then it is obvious that traffic and people would be looking for our website.
Great post. I hope this article would be helpful for many bloggers especially beginners.
Thank you for sharing.
I don’t point it out to someone if the blog is poorly written, and I try to see beyond that to what the person is saying. I don’t expect everyone to be able to spell well, and I know how inadequate spell check and grammar check can be. I also take into account whether English is the writer’s mother tongue. But regardless of how good the content, it can be painful to read a poorly written piece!
yes, ofcourse !! Spelling and grammar play a vital role in seo. It shows your impression on the visitors that you have daily. A visitor would like to read an article with correct english ofcourse. Content quality is the king of blogging. 🙂
Hi Nile,
I agree that having the correct spelling and grammar is so important in your blog posts. I do take the time to check my posts for both and even then some errors may get by me. I do believe that to be an effective communicator you have to take the time to write posts that are well crafted for your target audience and free of errors so that your reader stays engaged and can understand the message you are trying to get across with your article. Thanks for sharing your insights and the video on this important part of blogging.
I totally agree. Also spelling and grammar do affect the reputation of the blog. It will reflect your ability to write and your education background too in some respect.
Hi Dear,
A BIG bouquet of thanks! I have just gone through the guide and it’s really awesome. Thanks for sharing your guide. I always love getting freebies and this one will definitely help me out with my own blogs. I’m a new blogger therefor this post is helpful for me.
This guide is loaded to the max with invaluable tips and resources. I love this post because it is useful and
informative for me.I have shared and tweeted it. Always enjoy your posts. 🙂
Thanks again !!!!
Hi Nile, I agree with you that we need to ensure that our posts are proof checked before we publish to remove spelling and grammatical errors . A clean post without errors shows that we have real command on the language and will also help the users to engage better.
Till date i dont know that Spelling and Grammar plays a key role in Seo. After reading your post i got a clear idea how they effect seo.
Grammar is very important and while we cannot notice mistakes our readers being smarter notice them and their feedback is what’s important.
In general forums has plenty of misspelling because there’s many people from around the world and because English is not their native language we see what we see.
Hi Nile,
You have brought out the basic stuff which should be known to every blogger. Spelling and grammar mistakes can harm the SEO of a blog. It is necessary to write posts which don’t have any spelling and grammar mistake because whenever readers visit to that post and find these mistakes then it can tend to reputation fall. A blogger should build up a blog with quality and accuracy. There are many bloggers who try to manipulate Google but face Google penalty. Thanks for reminding me again about these mistakes.
Nice post
Grammar and spelling mistakes in blog posts or content is a matter of concern in SEO as it can mislead the visitors who have come to our site. The basic motto of every blogger would be giving best services to the people who visit our site. These simple mistakes can make the visitor in to a non returning user.
So it is best if we could provide people with good , informative and unique kind of content. This would help them for gaining information and for us by getting traffic.
Thank you for sharing.
Nile, great article and well worth the read!
When one is submitting an article, to be published at an outside source. That is when, all would take place and doubled checked. When you are sharing your voice, on your own blog. You are making sure to get a core message out. You also, want to write as you speak and make sure that it is understood by all.
Those who spend time and money on their blogs, to produce money from ads. It is a different ball game all together.
Yes, spelling is very important. Most people have opinions when it comes to others locations. Yet, look at theirs and just try to make sense of all the Billboard type of display. You can not even find a worthy article to read. I would not want to read, what is on the someone else blog. Then turn around and read it one yours, with just a different presentation. That is what SEO crazy focus is doing to most bloggers. They are not professional writer, and do not want to be.
SEO, is just a way to produce great results, for being exposed more by those little bugs. They are scanning your site, and making note of various things. Most people are not into SEO, being they are just sharing their passions. Hey, if they can offer a product or two find. They are not trying to make a buck.
Those, who are so involved with correction. The product, being article. Is not worthy of time for the readers. They seem to visit, without interaction. You live and die by interaction! Give me useful information and I appreciate the site. That will make me hungry for more!
Thank you for making these great points. I guess each to their own.
Hello Nile
I am not a English native language blogger. So Grammar is always a problem for me. So I use After the deadline plugin in my WP blog to check mistakes.
Nile, Very interesting post and I guess as people misspell when searching it could work in someones favour to take advantage…
Hi Nile, what do you recommend when it comes to English and American spelling? We also have different grammar rules as well, so would be interested on your thoughts as to whether search engines take nationality into account or just issue some kind of penalty to anyone who doesn’t use American?
Grammar and spelling are important but so is tone. Fishing blogs (and I assume many others) use a jargon. If you are not using it folks might think you don’t know what you are talking about. Fisherman say folks or people, never persons. (Unless they are deliberately trying to be pretentious).
On a blog you have to walk it, talk it, and produce a picture to make it in blogging.
Still, run on sentences are a problem. If you cannot be bothered to run a spell check you have a problem. If it is not clear to the reader than you are not communicating well, if at all.
I am trained in business and law. BS and AAS respectively. I use semi colons (;) shamelessly. Legal research and documents are full of semi colons. It is an industry thing.
Thank you for your post. I agree but I think you should take tone and industry into consideration.
Hi Nile,
I didn’t know how important grammar and spelling counted! I am pretty careful about it when I write a post because David always gives it a read over and will change a few things up. I write like I talk and it is difficult.
However, I am mindful of it and blessed that David is by my side to fix it all up.
Thanks for the tip!
-Donna
Hi Nile,
Never knew about this but it doesn’t matter as my grammar is nice and which I think is enough for my visitors and search engines.
With the changing in trends in SEO I think that Google will add everything that they want.
Search engines now take much more notice of social reach, rather than just behind the scenes internal SEO. This means that writing for your readers also acts as writing for search engines. The more a site is shared on social media sites, and the more visitors that come from there, the better your rankings.
A site with poor grammar, sentence structure and spelling is not going to encourage sharing nor attract return readers. Post layout, length of paragraphs and use of headings and bullet points are also important factors. All contribute to ease of reading and a professional look and feel.
I was amused with the WP spell check on a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago on image optimization. For each instance of the word “image” (as in photo/picture) the spell check suggested the word “reputation”.
Nice explanation. One of the biggest problem when writing is my grammar. Do you have any recommended grammar checker online that is reliable. I know grammarly but I don’t have the funds to pay its monthly subscription fees.
I don’t use any and really don’t have any recommendations. Your best best is to write it in MS Word first… lol
Looks like you gave me an idea. I will write first in MS word before I published it in my blog. Thanks again. Nile.
Thanks for this great article Nile its logic to have great content and correct content not for SEO but for our own audience, however not all bloggers and native English speakers, and we try our best to learn the language we will always make mistakes 🙁
seems realistic!!! as you say “content is king and visitors are queen” and i love queenssssss….
I think in the long run it is more important because if people can’t understand the words then what the hell you do with the articles and other things you do in the webs.
Really, i got so much help through this post. now i got to know how much the grammar matters boss thank you so much. From now i pay more and more attention to Grammar par also.
Thanks
Sumit
Thanks for sharing these article Nile. 🙂 If you have so many misspelled or you used wrong grammar surely the viewers will consider your article or blog as spam. Good spelling won’t make your page to the top, but bad spelling might prevent you from ranking well at all. Always double check.
I always strive to keep my content spelled correctly and that everything is grammatically correct. Thanks for the post.
Great article Nile. Two thumbs up on the “Content is king, and readers are queen”. The king is nothing without the queen. Personally I find reading the article out loud (especially to another person) helps to reduce grammar and spelling mistakes. It will work even better if you come back 1 or 2 hours later to read the article.
Heard and proved by many that content is the King of SEO so it should be be free from grammatical errors. I would also like to suggest that long articles also plays important role in seo. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Nice post on another S.E.O related topics. I have learned much more from your blog and still I am learning. I am paid with $100 in odesk already!
Thank you for serving me in the world of S.E.O
I also think grammar and spelling mistakes matter a lot in seo. We should be careful about these things while writing post. Thanks for this share, Nile.
Hi Nile,
I personally don’t believe Grammar plays a direct impact on SEO, unless it is too terrible and hard to comprehend. I don’t think Google search bots have achieved human language processing just yet at this time. But, it does affect visitors bounce rate and link citations, which indirectly affect SEO.
Believe me, it does… and if you aren’t following Matt Cutts, then that makes sense that you missed the memo from Google.
Spelling matters regardless of SEO. If you write with horrible grammar and spelling, you’ll lose any readers you do have. Great article!
Absolutely not !! Grammar doesn’t matter much in SEO. I have seen various low quality blogs ranking on top for certain keywords. Those blogs were very poorly written with incorrect grammar and punctuations.
Bhanu- Spelling does matter. Go back to the basics.
After all somebody will read the post. Even blogs most of the time, use freestyle and not very formal speach. In terms of SEO, I doubt that Google or any other search engine is perfoming extensive grammar and spell checking on all 100-billion websites.
Hi Nile
nice article i just want to know that google has recently released updates. in which points or basis google was released updates.
Great article Nile
I also think grammar and spelling mistakes matter a lot in seo. But, Sometimes we make minor mistakes while writing post.
If a blog post has bad grammar, I don’t usually read it, it’s just too hard. That’s when I can tell that the author has English as his/her first language. You can tell when someone doesn’t have English as their first language, because they make similar little mistakes in grammar that don’t really change the meaning of a sentence – it’s just a little thing you can easily work out. So, I don’t mind reading a blog written by someone who’s first language wasn’t English.
Of course, SEO is doesn’t accept bad grammar.
Your article is informative. Thanks for sharing.
So agree with how important spelling and grammar are! Yes, there are those moments when it’s appropriate, and you choose, to be quirky or comical. Your readers get the point, and know this was done deliberately. But it does rather set my teeth on edge to see “loose” so many times when the writer clearly meant “lose”. Or they’ll ask, “Who’s book is this?” Aarrck! I can’t figure out if it’s today technology (think of the “shortcuts” used in texting), or sheer laziness, but this dumbing down of our language will turn me away from more than one website.
Thanks for posting. A needful post!
Spelling and grammar always matter in seo, If you are having poor spelling and grammar everything turns around at last you would end up with low quality contents and will be loosing readers and traffic soon. One must be very much aware of grammar and usage of proper English. Thanks for sharing this with us 🙂
Thanks for the awesome post.many bloggers are confused with importance of grammar in SEO and this post is really helpful.In my case I write my post firstly on MS word and then check for any errors and spelling mistakes.Proofreading is one of the essential element before publishing any post..
Thanks again..
if this explanation especially the grammer and spelling points is under matt then its really affective…and I hope so
Glad to hear it matters!! I often go through my posts three or four times to make suer all is well written.. and still miss mistakes….There is nothing worse for me when I read a blog post and it’s got spelling errors and words used incorrectly.. I understand that now a days there is some leniency about spelling.. but i’m a bit old schooled and like things written well!!
I shudder when I look back at some of my posts from 2005 and see how unconcerned I was with proper grammar back then. It is scary. I’m working on slowly updating those old posts with far fewer ellipsis. It is a time consuming process, but totally worth it.
Great article! Grammar should matter in SEO. I cringe at the improper use of ‘their’ and ‘they’re’
Kari,
I wish it was that simple for me as it is for you.. hope I get better soon.
_nickc
I hate when I publish a post, and somebody tells me about more than one spelling error! I want to get mad at spell check, but I rely on it!
I agree with this so much. I’ve visited sites where the grammar and spelling is just atrocious and it automatically makes me run away from it.
I’m not the best speller in the world and that’s why I check everything a hundred times and then I ask my girlfriend to proofread it as well.
But for non-english blogger, it is kinda hard to keep all those grammar correct, unless you pay for a good writer, which of course cost you more money..
Spelling is important, I agree, but I’m not sure about punctuation, because it’s very hard for google to be so clever.
Well great article Nile, in the starting of blogging I used to overlook such mistakes which resulted in a very high bounce rate and then I tried to write better and meaningful content and VOILA!! the bounce rate got very low..
Nile,
you know what? when I read part of your article above, I was going to skip it and move to another one since I know I suck in regard to grammar and spelling.. for as long as I can remember, I could never get it correctly (by the way, if you are not aware, I never attended any formal English speaking education 🙂 BUT then is my to my self, why should I avoid reading and so I went to the ned and watched the video…
My final words on this topic are simple to you and who ever read this comment.. not intended to offend you or anyone one.. Just place our selves in the place of a person who does not know any better for a reason or another and than we can impose them to be perfect as we believe we are…
I always strive to do my best.. and hope that people who read my articles or comments.. can sense that what ever I write come from a place of truth according to my capability.. and if for any reason they do not.. well, I cannot do much more than what I do, as I do it… and I am sorry for them.
Thanks so much for this great article that raised my awareness a couple of notches higher..and hope I did not make many mistakes while writing the comment, because I have no idea if I did or not haha 🙂
_nickc
Hi Nile,
I agree that spelling and grammar also play a crucial role along with content idea for blog post. I myself do take special care about this and check my post many times before posting in order to make sure that the post is free of errors.
I also think that spelling mistakes can affect our ranking in search engine. I always try to write grammatically correct articles. This should be done by every blogger. Thanks Nile for this information.
Hi Nile
It is good to meet you here after having interaction at your Facebook group with your a few admonishment for sharing links on wrong days. But I do have regards for your disciplined administration there.
You pointed well in the beginning of your post that writing excellent is also a problem for those whose primary language is not English as like me. That is why we face difficulty to cover maximum sense in minimum words.
If it is clear that now we need to write both for search engines and people then obviously blunders and very poor composition will also a big matter for SEO.
Thanks for sharing this post of unique subject that really helped me a lot to learn more.
This teacher will certainly stress the importance of good spelling and grammar. In my opinion, it’s a matter of credibility. If I’m reading something that is not well written, it will certainly make me wonder about the quality of the product being promoted and will usually cause me to go somewhere else. I definitely believe it makes a difference..
Thanks author for sharing the importance of Grammar and spelling in blogging. Cuz I use to blog too much and since now I wasn’t aware about these mistakes. Thanks mate.
It matters a lot. Leave a lone SEO, if anyone lands on your website and he or she doesn’t understand a sentence because of grammatical errors then they will not bother to go through it nor to come back. The search engine also need to understand the language and so it is very important to have everything corrected before submitting any content on any website.
Hello Nile,
Very good demonstration of the concept. Just want to add an extra point in it, if you have poor English skills, then it would act as negative force automatically on the reader. The reader would think of you as dumb person. That’s why it is always good to cross check your grammar and sentences in the article whenever you are going to publish it.
great article, and yes i love the phrase “Content is King and Visitors are Queen.”
there should be no spelling errors as it gives a bad impression to the reader.
Hi Nile,i have read many articles about seo,but till now i did not find any article which have explained that grammar and spelling’s really matter in seo.Thank’s for the unique information.Till now i have never concentrated on those things which may the reason i am not getting positive view.But from now i will be sure to write the content which is of spelling and grammatically correct.Thank’s a Lot NILE..!! 🙂
Spelling and grammar in my opinion should matter. If you want to be seen as reputable I think it is important to spell properly. Your audience can tell if you conducted your research before you constructed your blog post. Additionally they can also tell if you threw something together quickly without going back and at least double checking your spelling and grammar.
Undersanding that english is not everyone’s primary language, if you are writing your blog post in english we have to do our very best job to place in front of the readers a blog post that flows smoothly and that they can easily understand. This takes practice. I struggle with this as well and at times always seem to miss the little things.
I agree that going back and correcting older post is also important. One goal of your blog is to keep the reader interested and on your blog for a while. If they decide to read some of your older posts, these posts should also reflect your best work. Thanks for sharing.
Didn’t knew anything about bad grammar and spelling effects on S.E.O so thanks for this info. But I know one thing, If you mess these things up then they really make the visitor feel that they’re visiting the worst blog on the Internet.
Hello Nile! thanks for sharing this perfectly explained approach of grammars but i also want to add one point that while writing the title or content , we have to make sure that we are not misplacing the capital letters or mixed letters in content.This also affects the Page ranking factor of the Google as the users always search keywords in small letters.
If you are able to make your readers understand the points you would like them to get, grammer and spelling doesnt matter a lot.. Also blogging is something from which we would like to set up a platform which enables other people to find out things they are looking for.. its not about english and grammer.. you should be correct in english and grammer to point that others would be able to understand your points..not more than that..
I would say Spelling does matter in SEO; search engines attempt to auto correct spelling errors so that is something to be said; whereas Grammar could be construed as more subjective that is who would have known a few years ago we would have an acronym for everything OMG! So I hope search engines engineers wold consider Grammar to be subjective.
Of course, SEO is doesn’t accept bad grammar.
Your article is informative.Spelling and grammar matter in SEO.
Dear Nile,
I truly agree with your points and I often ask my fellow blogger friends to recheck and proof read their own article. Although blogging might be for leisure only, but having a beautiful article with no spelling and grammar error will eventually attract more readers and have a good position in SEO.
Cheers! Looking forward to more of your interesting content.
Hello Nile,
I am going to bookmark this post for later usage. Whenever, I get in touch with a newbie blogger all he asks me about the role of grammar / spelling / content in SEO and these days ranking of websites.
Hello Nile
Really very nice and impressive article you have written .Yes the grammar / spelling / content in SEO matter very much to rank on the search engine . Thanks for sharing the information with us .
Thanks
Alex
Language is a uniquely human attribute, one of the things that makes us what we are. We are all born with the faculty to use it and all languages conform to the same basic patterns and structures. like the way you say. Like this article.:-)
yes, spelling and grammar is a vital mater in seo and spelling mistakes can affect our ranking in search engine. we must careful about it.
Yeah, Grammar is really Important for SEO as well as for your Audience.
This is really great advice! I’ve been working closely with a team of copywriters to build engaging pieces for a specific client and it’s been difficult explaining to them the connection between SEO and proper grammar. This has been a great help. Thank you!
In starting I used to write really poor content. But I was lucky because all my readers helped me to know about my poor writing skills. They encourage me to focus more on my writing because of my writing ideas. Search engines just hate grammar mistakes, So it is good that you are aware of your grammatical mistakes.
Thanks for this article. You really did a great job 🙂
Very useful information… This is very helpful for newbie bloggers… 🙂
I was not sure about .Grammar is extremely necessary. Correct writing system and synchronic linguistics is therefore necessary in your journal posts. But you posted a good lead for me.