misspellings

how to include 'em?

[webpundit]

In order to develop good web content from the SEO perspective, there is a certain keyword density required. Now, the keyword I'm targeting is very commonly misspelled. Is there any way I can include the misspelled version into my copy without it seeming like an unprofessional typo? Thanks for your help!

[digitalghost]

You've touched on one of the most frustating aspects of SEO, targeting commonly misspelled words without looking like you don't know how to spell.

There are some creative solutions that can help both you and your surfer.

Optimize an entire page for the misspelled word. Let them know the word they searched for was misspelled;

You and I have something in common, we both agree that widgets should be spelled wijits, unfortunately, the people at Dictionary.com [dictionary.reference.com] don't agree with us.

But hey, what do they know? We carry a complete line of the best wijits on the market and since you and I agree on the spelling I'll take 10% off the purchase price.

No matter how you spell it we have the right wijit for you. Dictionaries sold separately.

Other Words I Can't Spell [esldesk.com]

[Mohamed_E]

A topic that has been dealt with here often and at length, see [google.com...] for starters (I find that using Google search on the site gives me better results than the site search).

[eWhisper]

If your competition isn't optimizing for the misspelling, I've noticed that adding it to the meta tags, and once discretely in the page in any <hx> capacity, will give you a top result without making it look like you can't spell.

However, I like digitalhost's suggestion, one of the best I've ever seen with dealing with misspellings, I'll definately have to try that one out.

eWhisper

[Iguana]

I used to just a line of text at the bottom of a page with
"Other spellings: ..."

I found I didn't have to include a misspelling more than once to come up on page 1 on the search results at Google - and then a good title did the rest.

However the people who misspelt the words never seemed to buy anything so I abandoned the traffic.

[internetbrothers]

Misspellings,

I used the same technique about 2 years ago, and because of this clever way of promotion A company called me and I made a web promotion contract with them, so far I have made more than 10,000 US Dollars from this company and I am still designing new sites for them and promoting their websites.

[Filipe]

Fortunately, this might be something you have to worry less and less about. Take a commonly mispelled word (e.g., "exaggeration"). Try typing any of these common mispellings into Google:

exagerration
exageration
exaggerration

They always offer the proper spelling. If all SE's followed suit, this would be less of a problem. Unless you're sure you're losing traffic as a result, I don't think it's worthwhile to include mispellings often on your pages.

What I would recommend is (as Iguana and eWhisper did) is to include it discretely once or twice in the page, and get links going to your site and that page to have the mispelling once or twice.

[ScottM]

Welcome to widgetville! Commonly misspelled: "Wigetville, wigdetville, widgetvile, widgetvil, etc. "

[eWhisper]

If the word is very highly searched, I wouldn't abandon it all together. I have one client who gets about 7% of their total traffic from misspellings, which leads to 7% of all sales (it's the exact same traffic pattern - just misspelled). It depends a lot on who your target audience is and the results of their searches.

[JayC]

In order to develop good web content from the SEO perspective, there is a certain keyword density required.

Keyword density isn't often a major concern when you're targeting misspellings. Unless your competitors are doing the same thing, you'll usually have little competition for the misspelled version. I've found that just one placement of the word on the target page along with one misspelled text anchor on another page usually works. You usually don't have to sprinkle the misspelled word all over the page.

[Ankheg]

This extends not just to "true" misspellings, but to oft-confusing matters of punctuation. While I always try to spell everything correctly, a page on one of my sites includes one instance of something quite similar to the phrase "citizen's rights" (it should, at least for this example, be "citizens' rights"). I rank in the mid-40's in Google for the correct punctuation, and first for the apohostrophe-s. When I noticed the phrase in my stats, I was first aghast - a typo! When I noticed that I get one or two hits a day, well... I let it be.

Just something to consider; brothers, brothers', and brother's are all treated differently by most SE's, even though a large part of the population cannot differentiate between them.

Hmmn...

[PatrickDeese]

Back in the good ol' days when Overture was $.01 click throughs I had a list of 50 - 60 words related to a region I was promoting with a travel site, and I was spending about ~ $8.00 per month on penny-per-click misspellings.

I liked doing it that way because then there was no worry that overall my site would be less about "XYZ" destination by placing "XZY" on any of my pages.

If you already have an overture budget, this isn't a bad way to pad it if you are lowballing. I would rather get $50 in "sloppy" hits for $.05 each than get 50 for $1.00 each.