Lifestyle Ignition

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Have you ever been reading something online and found a typo?  (This is rhetorical, of course you have).  I have found typos in even the most respected of places, like online newspapers and magazines, job applications, and very well respected blogs.  I once saw the country of Colombia spelled Columbia on a large multinational’s website for a career opportunity.  I mean really?!!!!  Yes, really.

Most of us just pass it over and move on.  That’s fine.  We aren’t required to do more.  However, I say mention it to the author.  Let them know.  It only takes a few seconds, and not more than a minute.

Most blogs have a ton of ways to get in contact with the author.  I usually use the contact page to shoot them a message.  If I have already connected with them, I’ll send them an email.  A typo is not something to mention on twitter or post publicly in the comment section. Send them a short message.  This is usually how I structure mine:

Hey [person’s name] I saw your site. I found a typo and wanted to help.

On this post of yours:

http://theirwebsite.com/post

I found the following typo.

Paste the text from the sentence.  Highlight or bold the typo.  You can include a personal message if you’d like.

Mark

On a side note, if the contact page is not working, you can be creative to find ways to help.  I wanted to ask a question to a favorite blogger of mine; Ross Hudgens, but his contact page was down.  He didn’t have a typo, but I wanted to get a hold of him.  Blog authors rarely look at their contact page.  Why would they?  I know I never do.  So I knew it could be a while before he noticed.  There is however, one thing bloggers do look at frequently.  Website traffic analytics.  So I googled “Ross Hudgens + You’re Contact Page Isn’t Working”.  When his website came up in the search results, I clicked on it.  He saw that he had an incoming visitor from someone who googled “Ross Hudgens + You’re Contact Page Isn’t Working”.  The message got through.

Spread that good karma.  They will remember you.  I’m not going to name websites or blogs that I have found typos on, but I find typos all the time.  There is so much information overload out there, many of us authors are up late writing and commenting because of our voracious excitement to continue pumping out content, and absorbing other content in.  We also have lives too, so a late night post is not uncommon.  Typos don’t make us bad people, but they can be embarrassing.  It doesn’t matter if you are a regular, casual, or first time reader of someone’s blog, help them out by letting them know.

I have thoroughly tried to vet my posts for typos, but I am sure some exist.  Nobody has mentioned any to me, but you can sure bet I will remember the people that do!  If you find typos, let the author know.  Keep spreading that good karma.  You’ll be thankful when you make an error, and someone politely points it out to you.

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