Capturing misspellings/typos?

timtom · 10-11-2006, 08:58 AM

I am doing keyword research for a client and came across a keyword phrase that people are searching 2 times a day that is obvious they are looking for my client but they are saying Bradford instead of Bedford. When you do a search for the phrase with Bradford, the results are other pages about my client but no results for the client. Any ideas of how I should go about capturing this traffic?

bizops · 10-11-2006, 10:45 PM

You could advertise on a pay per click basis with whatever search engine(s) you are finding the search on. That way you will show up there and not miss the sale.

timtom · 10-12-2006, 07:41 AM

currently doing PPC for the term.

Any organic ideas? should i just use the miss spelled word somewhere in the text?

Tyler Banfield · 10-12-2006, 07:53 AM

You can include an article on the site that somehow incorporated common misspellings of the word

netsearch · 10-12-2006, 03:29 PM

adding the misspelling somewhere on the web site might just do the trick

ppc click should only be about 5 cents for a misspelling search twice a day

Bernard · 10-12-2006, 03:54 PM

You might also try placing a targeted link or two (from external sites to your client's site) with the mispelling in the anchor text before adding the mispelling to the page copy (which may confuse your visitors or look unprofessional - affecting conversions).

A.N.Onym · 10-12-2006, 06:25 PM

Are you sure Bradford is a mispelling of Bedford?

Basically, you can create a page about Bradford and the services that your clients provides (main keyword phrases) and show the landed visitors to other pages on the site. Explain if it is Bedford that they wanted and what it is.

Generally, you'd be better off optimizing your client's website for local traffic.

webzenstar · 10-12-2006, 08:18 PM

Typos are part of the "human experience" online!

They just won't go away ; )

If your customer's name is "Bedford", I too would follow bizops' recommendation of purchasing PPC results for any related typo, such as "Bradford".

This being said, I'm not so sure "working the typos" is such a good idea because if you spent that time marketing "Bedford" to even more potential customers, that would probably compensate -by multiples- the number of visitors allegedly "lost to typos" (I also assume there's more than one typo possible for "Bedford").

I know typos can get annoying but sometimes, it's just better to stick to the main brand and market it with all you've got.

This being said, it's obvious that the final choice is entirely up to you!