QUICK TIP: Misspellings and Multiple Spellings in Product Descriptions

Do you have products in your store that have common misspellings or words that can be spelled multiple ways?

If so, make sure to include those misspellings and multiple spellings in your product description!

By adding these alternate spellings, you are improving your SEO (search engine optimization) and increasing the probability of your items being found in search engines and when a customer is searching for something within your store.

Misspellings and Multiple Spellings

For example, I often sell mannequins. Not everyone spells mannequins the same – some people search for “manikans” or “manikins”. If I only included the word “mannequins” in my product listings, people who search for the other spellings wouldn’t find them.

Another example – I often sell vintage Shur Shot cameras. Some people search for “sure shot” instead of “shur shot”. I’d be missing out on a lot of searches if I didn’t include the words “sure shot” in my listings. If I don’t want to include “sure shot” as a phrase, I could also include something like this sentence “sure, you could use this Shur Shot camera on your next vacation, but it also looks great sitting on a shelf”. Notice how I worked the word “sure” into the listing description, but in a natural way? If someone were to search for “sure shot”, that listing would appear.

Sometimes you can work an alternate spelling into your listing. For example, put both spellings together like this: “color / colour”, “mannequins / manikins”, or “jewelry / jewelrey / jewellery”. This is a fairly natural way to work those words in.

If you have words that are often misspelled, you could add them to your listing in a note – something like the phrase “also spelled manikan” – you get the idea.

The main point is, think like a customer and make sure to include popular spellings (both right and wrong) where appropriate in your listings.

How to Find Commonly Misspelled Words

Keyword research is one of the most important ways for you to improve your SEO. You can also do keyword research for commonly misspelled words. Here are several ways to do this.

• Your Shopify Dashboard – When a visitor to your store enters a search term, you will often see information cards showing you these latest searches. This is a valuable tool, as it shows you words you might not have thought to add to your product listings. When you see a search term that you can improve, make sure to modify your listing to include that term.
  
• Google Analytics and Google Search Console – You can check what keywords people have searched for to arrive at your website through your analytic reports. If you find words or terms there that fit within your product listings, make sure to add them.
• Common Misspelling Lists – There are several websites that have lists of commonly misspelled words – such as this list on Wikipedia. Use these lists to help you find alternate spellings that are used most frequently, and add those words to your listings.
• Keyword Typo Generator – Another way to find commonly misspelled words is to use a Keyword Typo Generator, such as this one from SEOBook.

How to Optimize for Misspelled Words

As I mentioned above, there are several ways you can add commonly misspelled words to your product listing pages in a natural way. By natural way, I mean using the words in a way that still keeps your website looking professional.

For example, you wouldn’t want to use a misspelled word in your titles or headings – that would just make it look like you cannot spell and would actually reduce your ranking in search engine results.

Here are some ideas on how to work these words into your product listings in a way that still keeps your website looking professional:

• Also Spelled As – As I mentioned above, add a note within your product listings that says something like “also spelled as jewellery” (or whatever the word may be).
• Use Multiple Words – Within the item description of your product, you can easily add multiple spellings of a word together, separated by a slash ( / ) or a comma ( , ). For example, “jewelry / jewellery / jewelery”. TIP: I would limit the number of words to a maximum of three spellings in this case as too many more words would be more difficult for a customer to quickly read through.
• Use Your Blog – If you don’t want to add the commonly misspelled words to your product listing page, you could add these words to your blog, with links back to your product pages.

NOTE: When optimizing your listings to include misspelled words, focus only on the commonly misspelled words. There is no sense optimizing your listings for misspelled words that are rarely ever used.