I know that google corrects spelling (or offers the correct one at least) but I still get quite a lot of people to my site through their spelling errors. I must have a link going to my site that is spelled incorrectly as I can't find it on the site! My question is: Is it worth adding some of the more common spelling mistakes somehow to the main page? If so, how to add them without making the page look like it has masses of spelling errors? Has anyone else done well for spelling SERPs?
I personally avoid the tactic because it looks very unprofessional, especially for a business orientated site.
If it's a common misspelling, or a name that people often get wrong, you sometimes have a bit of room to slip it in by referring to that i.e. something like Widgets, sometimes known as wijjits, are the most popular thingumyjigs in Transylvania.
Both sweetfunny and ssandecki are right, it is not worth trying that tactic as you will lose credibility and as the pages age you will be able to rank even for typos
ok, thanks for the input. You are probably right. I am already ranking for one or two of the mis-spellings anyway so perhaps you are right
Yeah i wouldn't use it for a really legit business, but maybe you could target misspellings for an adsense heavy site.
Work it into your site naturally. For example, this whitehat experiment I've been toying with(when I rarely have the time) about bonsai trees. It's no mistake it's called "bonzaibonsai", bonzai being the misspelling. Stays relevant, slightly catchy, and works out quite well. In addition, it allows me to put at the bottom of the page "© 2007 Bonsazi Bonsai", making it so every single page will match if the user misspells. It's not keyword stuffing, definitely can't be penalized, and stays looking professional.
The way that I was considering was a discreet drop down menu of popular mis-spellings of the main keyword. After all, I would hate for the fat fingered to be discriminated against. Possibly a css expanding menu type thing so that the words are not freely visible but neither are they hidden was my initial thought.
I like that, although I'd be careful to avoid JS in that; Google doesn't parse it so well. Another thing I've done in the past is have a list of those misspellings at the bottom, and have them linked. If they're clicked or crawled, it outputs a copy of the site, but replacing the real keyword with the misspelling. I've found google's dupe filters don't react much inter-site(think about all the ways to get a summary of an article in wordpress; tags, categories, etc. That would all be dupe otherwise). Another fun trick, is misspell like crazy in the contact us/terms and conditions/privacy policy. Stuff that no one reads. If you think that's too messy, include in the TOS that you assert all rights to your content, and do not allow reproduction. Then mention that it includes the following(Coming Soon!) subdomains: and then just run off your misspellings. No ones going to check if those exist, and even if they did, it's in a terminal state of "Coming soon!". So voila. Your keywords are at least on one page, no harm, no foul. Edit: I consistantly double take when looking at your avatar. That finger looks remarkably like a penis when you're just skimming the page.
Ack! Could be time to change it! Honestly, my penis is much larger than a baby's finger. Well, so I tell my wife. Good tips btw, thanks. In another of my sites I would plant one or two in a fake testimonial. Pretty low I guess
It really depends, are you ranking well for the non-miss spelling? Are you ranking well for the miss-spelling? If you are already ranking well for both, don't bother if you aren't then you need to judge how much the miss spelling is worth to you. In all honesty, most miss spellings are easy to rank for. Maybe just write a decent article and article submit it and see how that goes.
It looks bad though.. and btw did you know msn now includes the corect version of mistakes and puts them in the origional results insted of the old way of 'did you mean' they just say 'already included' now.. pretty neat. I must admitt i did have 2 spelling errors on my old site for mispellings but after msn changed that i fixed them all cause it dont help on msn.. Might work good for google still i dunno but it does look bad.. (Might could get away with it on a blog with tons of text).. but on normal webpage i wouldnt..
Spelling mistakes should me avoided except for smart mistakes as of this. Still i think not a very good idea to indulge into.
It should be avoided. You are wasting your time if you still add some misspelled words. Your keyword will rank through your misspelled words and it is not the real keywords that you want to be rank.
Google will rank for both direct terms and related terms as well. I guess a mispelling counts as "related"