Targeting misspelled keywords can often seem like an easy way to rank at the top of the search listings, but should you target misspelled keywords? Or is it a bad idea?
That’s a question that I get asked a LOT, and in this blog post, I aim to answer it once & for all.
So if you’ve found yourself wondering, should you target misspelled keywords for SEO then be sure to stick around & read this post to the end as you’ll find out everything you need to know. ?
Should You Target Misspelled Keywords?
In short, the answer is no – you shouldn’t. Targeting misspelled keywords may seem like an easy way to get high rankings & easy traffic, but it’s never a good idea.
And there are a few reasons for that.
Firstly, rule #1 of finding success with SEO is to always write for humans and never for robots. Creating content around a misspelled keyword looks unprofessional & realistically offers no benefit.
The reason it offers no benefit is that nowadays, search engines leverage something known as Latent Semantic Indexing. This means that rather than just relying on direct keywords, they actually gain an understanding of the content as a whole (and a broad range of indirect keywords related to it).
So, search engines now ultimately understand misspellings… Meaning that whilst keyword tools may show it as an easy option to target, in reality, it’ll still have pretty much the same level of competition as the properly spelled keyword itself.
And, most search engines now offer a “did you mean” style autosuggest, like the one shown below:
This means that in most cases, your content will go completely unnoticed as the search engines will automatically adjust the search to the correct keywords in the event of a misspelling.
So even though the misspelled search will show up in the results of a keyword tool (as it was searched), it will more often than not never actually be fulfilled by the search engine.
Not good.
Targeting Mispelled Keywords Is a Waste of Time
As far as I’m concerned, spending time creating content to target misspelled keywords through SEO is a complete waste of time.
The reason I say that is because in order to create the content to target the misspelled keyword, you will have to put in the exact same effort as you would to target the properly spelled keyword.
So why not just target the properly spelled keyword instead?
Sure, it’ll have more competition – but it’ll also naturally receive more searches, too.
This means that landing lower down the results for the properly spelled keyword will likely yield the same results as ranking high for the misspelled version.
The only difference is that by targeting the properly spelled keyword you have the added potential of eventually being able to move up through the rankings & capture all of the additional searches.
…all from the exact same level of effort.
And let’s face it, targeting misspelled keywords is a bit of a “gimmick”. It’s not really something you’d do (or should be doing) as part of a proper long-term SEO strategy.
There are more than enough low competition keywords out there that you can target in every single niche… Many of which are still completely untapped.
There’s simply no need to fool around with misspelled keywords which could simply see you spending hours creating content & then getting absolutely nothing in return when you could just find genuine, low competition keywords instead.
An Insightful Video On Bad Grammer Keywords
If you have an extra moment to spare then I highly advise that you watch the video that I’ve linked to below which has been put together by one of my affiliate marketing friends, Nathaniell.
What Others Say About Misspelled Keywords
If you’ve found a misspelled keyword that seems like an easy target then I appreciate that you might not just be willing to “take my word for it” when I say not to target it.
And so, as a result, I’ve decided to round up some comments from others on the matter.
You can see what others are saying about it below:
And if you’d like to, you can view that full discussion here.
The Bottom Line
If you’re going to target a misspelled keyword through SEO then you’re going to have to put in exactly the same amount of effort to create the content as you would do in order to target the properly spelled keyword… So it doesn’t really make sense to target the misspelled one.
More often than not, search engines will simply autocorrect the search which means that 9 times out of 10 your article will go completely unnoticed as 9 times out of 10 the misspelled query will never actually get executed.
Of course, however, this data still shows up in the keyword tools because technically somebody did indeed search for the misspelling… But what the tools don’t reflect is the fact that the search never actually got fully executed.
Instead, a different set of results were shown (the results from the properly spelled search term).
And even on the off-chance that the misspelled search does get executed, you are still going to be up against relatively the same amount of competition as if you were targeting the non-misspelled phrase because of Latent Semantic Indexing.
So whilst once upon a time targeting misspelled keywords may have actually been effective, nowadays because of advancements in search engine technology, it’s simply not worth it.
Yous should always just target the properly spelled keyword instead. That way you’ll also increase CTR from the search results & you’ll display more professionalism on your site.
And if you’re worried about competition, then your best option is to simply focus on targeting long-tail keywords (which will be certain to skyrocket your business).
Anyway, that’s a wrap for this post but if you still happen to have any questions or comments then don’t hesitate to leave them below. As always I’ll do my best to respond back to you as quickly as I can.
Hopefully, you found the post insightful. ?
