To increase organic traffic, you will naturally draw more towards SEO, so choosing the right keywords is crucial in order to achieve a higher ranking for your site. As this is quite an effective strategy, it still requires a bit more effort to properly choose the right keywords to increase organic traffic.

You may be thinking, what would happen if I threw in some misspelled keywords that rank high to increase organic traffic?

Utilising misspelled keywords used to be a common SEO strategy however, over the years, opinions about the topic have changed. In this article, we will look at the benefits and drawbacks of using keywords with typo mistakes. Now, if you still decide to go ahead with past common SEO strategies, do not freak out. This blog will also cover how to use misspelled keywords in your strategy effectively.

Let’s begin with the benefits.

Benefits of using keywords with typo mistakes

Wider reach to increase traffic

One in ten searches can be a spelling error, this could possibly be a benefit for your SEO strategy when selecting keywords. The fact that some misspelled keywords have a higher search volume than the correctly spelt keywords show people are actually searching with the wrong term. However, this can be used to your advantage.

Below is an example of a commonly misspelled word along with search volumes. Sometimes people often get confused with ‘absense’ and ‘absence’, and the correct way of spelling it is ‘absence’. This gives a clear vision of how some typos, there are substantial search volumes in place they can be a great source of inspiration to increase web traffic.

Google is becoming smart at identifying wrongly spelled words which still allows some traffic coming through.

Less competitive

In most common cases, a correctly spelt word is going to rank higher and is going to be more competitive than the misspelled keywords. Every keyword has a keyword difficulty figure, and the rule of SEO is – the higher the search volume the more difficult it is to rank for. This may a good opportunity to use keywords with typos in terms of reaching new and more clients without putting in too much effort.

From here, you can research some competitive terms relevant to your site and find common typos that come with the word. You can optimise for these keywords knowing there isn’t much competition for them.

Overall, words and names (product/company names) that are often misspelled and are regularly used as part of your keyword strategy or if keywords are included in some phrases that commonly get spelling errors in your niche, then this strategy may hit the spot for you.

Drawbacks of using keywords with typo mistakes

Affects website quality

Ideally, your website should be easy for a human to read, your website should not contain an overload of keywords to please search engines. Search engines tend to find this unpleasant, and it is considered ‘keyword stuffing’. This can have a negative impact on organic traffic, and it can be off-putting for the reader.

Unprofessional

You need to ask yourself if you actually want to include spelling errors in your website. If you want to rank for keywords will typo mistakes, then you must include them in the content and sometimes it is not the easiest to make it unnoticeable. You may risk your website looking highly unprofessional.

As Google is the most common search engine tool, it has become smart enough to identify spelling errors. This means there’s a higher chance for the results to show for the correctly spelt keyword however, if you still want to see results for the misspelled keywords then will have to click on ‘search instead for…’ which in most cases people won’t.

How to rank for keyword misspellings

As mentioned previously, having spelling mistakes on your website can look highly unprofessional which can ultimately impact on reputation. But it does not mean you absolutely cannot use them; you just have to find a smart way to do it.

Blog posts

Take this blog post as an example, earlier we shared an example of ‘absense’ and ‘absence’…and what are you reading now? A blog post with a spelling error. A blog which constantly uses spelling mistakes could be a way to improve organic traffic.

Alt text

This is a great way to squeeze in additional keywords alt text in the images of your website without the error being visually noticeable. This is helpful for search engines because they’re not able to read images however, they can read alt text which tells search engines what the image is.

Often, alt text is not viewed by the reader so this potentially can be a great way to secretly slide keywords with spelling errors.

PPC

If you really have the urge to use misspelled keywords for your website, then you could consider running Google Adwords without damaging your brand. Google Adwords will allow you to pay for keywords you choose including keywords with spelling errors. In most cases, Google identifies typo mistakes and shows relevant ads for similar words. A search report can help you understand the searches people made to trigger your ad and can be insightful and beneficial to your ad.

To summarise, if you can be discreet about using misspelled keywords to avoid harming the reputation of your website so it is probably worth a try. We highly recommend weighing your pros and cons before you decide to go ahead with this strategy because every niche and business is different.

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The post Should you use misspelled keywords on your website? first appeared on Predictable Marketing.