Caution: Your Eyes Play Tricks When Checking or Editing Contact Info

Recently a Facebook networking group ran a cross-promotional "Editing Challenge" in which local business owners could put on their editing hats and take a shot at winning a prize.

All they had to do was identify seven errors that I had written into a faux social media post designed to look and read like the ones typically published in the group. The seven errors included wrong and missing punctuation, incorrect word usage, misspellings and a typo in the contact info. All the mistakes, it's important to note, were common ones we've picked up many times on business websites and ads.

It took two days and several dozen entries, including some from seasoned writers, before a winner emerged. And the reason it took so long is because not one person was able to identify the mistake in the contact info. The winner finally found it after some clues and a little prodding led her in the right direction.

Think about it. The error with the highest potential to damage a small business was the hardest to detect.

See for yourself:

Learn more at www.tiptopbusinessservices.com or reach out directly at clients@tiptopbusinesservices.com.

Do you see it? Even now, with the answer basically given to you, it still might take two or three reads to notice the email address is missing an 's' -- as in Tip Top Business Ervices.

Once you reach content like URLs, email addresses, phone numbers and mailing addresses, your brain and eyes get a little mischievous. If you're reviewing your own contact info, you don't read it critically, you skim it. You've typed out and copied/pasted it so often that you trust yourself to determine that all elements look correct without actually reading them. And your eyes are already accustomed to playing tricks when you self-edit your writing.

Unfortunately for the fine, fictional folks at Tip Top, no emails are getting through to this inbox. And many prospective clients will be the recipients of bounced emails, a major red flag to those in search of a trustworthy business consultant.

We've seen business websites with mismatched zip codes, advertisements with botched URLs and mailers missing phone-number digits. Even a professional writer can let down their guard and fall into the contact-info trap.

As always, it's best to trust a professional editor.