Typo SEO is a No Go Unless You Know the Flow

7Dec2008 Filed under: Online Marketing Author: JW

by Stoney deGeyter

Every now and then I hear talk from SEOs about going after typos with their optimization campaign. I don’t want to disregard that as a valid strategy, but there are reasons why I generally don’t do Typo SEO.

1) As a web surfer, I don’t like reading typos on a website. Not all search typos are made because people don’t know how to spell. They can spell just fine, it’s just their fingers hit the wrong keys. Adding these misspellings to your content will only make you look silly and unprofessional.

2) Search engine are pretty good about correcting misspellings with the “Did you mean…” feature. Over the past few months I’ve caught myself making several misspelled searches. If I see I entered my search incorrectly I click the link provided that triggers a search for the proper spelling. I don’t even look at the results.

typos are everywhere Even if your keyword research shows that the misspelled term gets a decent search volume, I think you’d have to cut that in half or more for to get a true accuracy of the search volume. A search that is quickly turned away from provides no value to the sites ranked in the original search.

Of course if you feel optimizing for typos is still an effective strategy for you–and it can be for many depending on the keywords–then there are a couple ways to go about it.

1) Use your meta tags for the misspellings. Keep the misspellings out of your content but feel free to use your meta tags. Honestly, I’m not sure how much benefit that will provide, but at least you’re trying.

2) Place your misspelled keywords in links from other sites. That may seem a bit dubious, but if someone else is agreeing to link to you and you can get them to spell it wrong, more power to you.

3) You can use your misspelled words in ALT tags, table descriptions, and other places, but do so only at your own peril. This might get you some additional traction, but then it might reduce your ability to rank for the correct spelling, if you placing misspellings where proper spellings should go.

4) Use PPC. This keeps your site typo free and you can ensure your ad only appears with a misspelled search. Nice. Clean. Easy.

5) Strategically place typos in your blog posts. Blogs tend to be less formal and rife with spelling and grammatical errors. This gives you a little more leeway to make a typographical “mistake”. You can also place your typo in the URL of your blog posts for a little extra umph.

I should point out that there are times when optimizing for typos is necessary. This is never more true if there are significant searches for your brand name spelled incorrectly. You want and need these people to find you. Using the strategies above can help you target the typos that are truly important.

Oh, and I find it completely ironic that every time I type the word “misspelling” I “mispell” it.

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