[lazytycoon]

Great advice given by Wizely today to target incorrectly spelt keywords which will normally have very low competition but can sometimes have a significant amount of traffic.

I am interested to read other people’s opinions on this. I have always liked this idea but been hesitant to use it, and if I have used it I normally try and hide it somewhere, maybe as a subpage and link to it right at the bottom. I am worried about putting off potential buyers, when they see an error they might think the whole site is an error and bounce.

What are your opinions?

[AdamG]

I don't really know to much about this.

But with all the things such as Firefox with spell checker and Google's spell checking after u search, stop people from searching misspelt words?

Like when I type something in google wrong it says 'Did you mean ####?' and I always click on that before I look at search results. But I dunno, maybe I'm just different.

[Meow]

lazytycoon, on 28 July 2009 - 02:42 PM, said:

I am worried about putting off potential buyers, when they see an error they might think the whole site is an error and bounce.

Absolutely. As a bit of a spelling freak, I couldn't bear the thought of having deliberate mistakes on show - unless you could specifically label it as such, like by saying something along the lines of "...also commonly known as ...".

In the days when you were expected to fill the 'keywords' tag it was more appropriate to add the misspellings but it just looks shoddy if they're out on display in the pages. Besides, you get the "Did you mean...?" spring up if you do spell something wrong. Search engines are a bit cleverer these days.



EDIT: small crossover with the post above there
Plus, I also meant to add they can be more acceptable within a PPC campaign as they're hidden away in the background there, as long as you've spelt the ad correctly.

[wizely]

Um... I only meant in keyword tags - never, ever where it will appear in front of humans!

I do however, begrudgingly, use some UK-accepted American spellings of key phrases where google does it's helpful suggesting (doesn't recognise that English is spoken outside of America).

Whatever spellings you chose (and they must be the right spellings) - as long as you're consistent then it's OK to mix-and-match international styles.

[BlueDreamer]

Incorporating mispellings and variation of internatiaonal words isn't that difficult, but you have to think what the cat does when the box lid is closed (cryptic bit... who knows the cat?)...

This piece (often misspelt as 'peice') of text is for demonstration

I walked into the lift and pressed the button for the 13th floor. The two elevators' doors rumbled closed, gently rocking me as they kissed together. My stomach began to slowly fall as the elevator rose upwards towards my destination...

Petrol prices are set to fall! An ACME Petrolium Conglomorate spokesman announced "gas prices are going down!"

[wizely]

Wow blue one... that got philosophical!
It's like notbanksy in a hottub - he is both clothed and naked until you peer through the bubbles...

[BlueDreamer]

wizely, on 28 July 2009 - 05:07 PM, said:

It's like notbanksy in a hottub - he is both clothed and naked until you peer through the bubbles...

fantastic

Did you know my fridge light only comes on when the door's shut?

[gentlefoot]

No point unless you go for a typo that will generate massive traffic - www.goggle.com for example.

When people mis-spell things Google still seems to return my site anyway. Just today for example I got a hit for 'computer upgrades surry'.

[lazytycoon]

The question is what are your thoughts if the typo does have a lot of traffic...

[skidz]

lazytycoon, on 29 July 2009 - 02:28 PM, said:

The question is what are your thoughts if the typo does have a lot of traffic...

You'd have to be mad to miss out on the oppurtunity!!!

[gentlefoot]

I think it could result in very high bounce rates if your site does not offer what the user was actually looking for.

Typos not something I personally would bother to target.

[wizely]

I think this has got misunderstood.
There are plenty of words which people regularly misspell or make typos with.
Meta keyword tags don't do a huge amount, but why not use them if they help your site be seen as relevant to something it is relevant to if only the bugger searching could type properly!
You don't want to have misspellings in your visible content so the meta keyword tags are about your only option.

I doubt it has much effect... search engine's do their best to interpret typos. But, for a few seconds work and no harm done - it might snag you a handful of visitors you didn't otherwise get. If not, oops... that's a few seconds of your life wasted.

Oh, and I love this:

skidz, on 29 July 2009 - 02:35 PM, said:

You'd have to be mad to miss out on the oppurtunity!!!

Nicely done!

[gentlefoot]

Nothing can be gained by adding a keyword (mis-spelled or otherwise) to the keywords meta tag unless that word also appears somewhere in the content, description or page title.

[wizely]

But the search engines don't just look at single words as isolated things... they associate words.

'designer', 'designing', 'design', 'designs'...
'optimization', 'optimisation' (that's how they do the 'did you mean?' alert)

Not that meta keyword tags do too much so no-one's missing a big secret or killer SEO trick!

[lazytycoon]

LOL

Thanks for clearing that up Wizely

Here's where I am. On one of my sites I am actively targeting a misspelling, or Americanism its about 50:50. I have created a seperate page fully optimised it to target the given keyword, there is only 1 link to it at the end of my footer. There are around 10K searches for it per month and the competition is low, over the next few months it should be page 1. As my products are directly targeted at the correct spelling of the keyword I expect bounce rates will continue to hover around the 30-40% mark.

I my opinion it is crazy not to go after typos if they potentially hold some money in them, the trick has to be though how do you hide them from the literate traffic.

[wizely]

See... now that sounds sensible!

What I've done on my own site is use the 'UK accepted' Americanisms where google gives its helpful culture-ignoring advice or there's a huge difference in search volumes. As long as I'm consistent then I don't have to spell everything US-style or everything the proper way, I can make a style choice.

I've also done a fair amount of 'localisation' work for clients in my time and there it's not just spelling differences or slang or whatever... it's how people think when they search, and more importantly, what makes them buy that counts.

But, of course like I say, SEO is just about blitzing the net with links so no one need concern themselves with any of this stuff!

(Which reminds me... another method of handling typos is in anchor text from other sites)

[Tim Tavender]

I think it depends on the word. The term Stationary has more search volume than stationery, but then it is a real word, whereas Cufflinks and Cufflings are commonly used to search for erm, Cufflinks! In the latter case in may be appropriate to have a page that says "You dork, you spelt it wrong, but its okay because we sell Cufflinks, which is what you meant!"

Or you could just not target misspellings and focus on the correct ones