How many times have you misspelled a word when searching for something on Google or whatever your favorite search engine is? A lot of online searchers tend to do this regularly. It’s not that we can’t spell. Oftentimes we just accidentally hit the wrong letter on the keyboard; sometimes the term we’re looking for is too weird and so on. No matter how you look at it, misspelled keywords are a significant source of traffic and a tempting opportunity for Search Engine Optimization.
Misspelled keywords tend to be less competitive then their correctly spelled brothers but often feature impressive search stats. That makes many website promoters go after typos with their SEO campaigns. However, there’re certain things about this optimization method you need to be aware of before you jump on the wagon and set the target at the common misspelling in your niche.
Traffic Data for Misspelled Keywords Is Not Reliable
Whenever you type a word into the search box incorrectly Google will set you on the right path with the help of a ‘did you mean…’ hint. A large part of users including myself will refine the search with the right spelling without even looking at the search results for the misspelled keyword. The other group of users however will click through to the sites listed in the results for the typo. It’s really hard to tell the exact proportion of users that actually rely on the SERPs for incorrectly spelled searches. When you analyze the traffic data for typo keywords in Google AdWords Keyword Tool, Wordtracker or other SEO tools you can divide the number of searches you see in half with no hesitation and you’ll wind up with a more true-to-life picture.
Typos vs Correct Spellings
When you optimize for an incorrect spelling you may sacrifice part of your ranking power for the correctly spelled keywords. Keep that in mind when going for typos with your SEO and do this wisely and only when the game’s really worth the candles.
Typos in Your Content Undermine Your Authority
People don’t like seeing typos on a website. That’s why optimizing for common misspellings is a tricky thing to do. On the one hand you want to tap into the users who are searching for an incorrectly spelled keyword; on the other hand you don’t want your visitors to see these SEO typos in your content because this would result in poor user experience, undermine your authority as an expert in the subject and may adversely affect the conversions.
There are a number of ways to optimize your website for misspelled keywords without having to level off the quality of your content:
– Use the misspelled keywords in meta descriptions, alt tags and other page elements that are not visible on your website to the human visitors. This way the search engines will rank you higher for the misspelled terms and visitors will be happily reading a correctly spelled copy.
– Target typos in the anchor texts when building links for your website.
– Use your blog. If you have a blog you can throw in a couple of misspelled words there, because blogs tend to be much less formal and an occasional typo is ok if you use it strategically.
– Run a Pay-Per-Click campaign for the misspelled keywords. Although this is not quite a Search Engine Optimization technique, a PPC ad will enable you to target common misspellings without having to sacrifice anything on your website.
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