Many mispleddings of Cyclelicious

Common misspelling of this bicycle blog: [cycle licious] cyclelicoius cyclelicous cylelicius cyclicious cyclelic.us cycle.lici.us

Who honestly remembers where the dot goes in "de.licio.us" without having to think about it? Does it ever trip you up?

I admit that even my own domain name, Cyclelicio.us, gets misspelled when I leave comments on other blogs. That dot in between two letters is not something my 72 wpm fingers are accustomed to typing and they stumble when forced to move in weird and different directions.

It's interesting, however, that a good number of visitors to Cyclelicious come after searching for the term "Cyclelicious." I guess it's something like brand awareness -- you remember the name of this blog, but you can't remember exactly where the dot is supposed to go. I imagine several people also remember something about Cyclelicious-something, but can't figure out how to spell the word. I've probably lost them forever unless they run across me by accident.

I do the same thing when I visit the websites of my local bike shops. I Google for high gear cyclery. Or is it higher gear cyclery? High gear cycles? Or maybe it's high gear bikes.

Bike shop webmasters, you're completely familiar with the name of your bike shop, but your customers -- even loyal customers -- may not remember exactly what your bike shop is named. If your web traffic is important to you, think about optimizing your site for some alternative names for your shop. If you run "The Bike Mart," your customers might be hunting for Bicycle Mart, Cycle Mart, or even BikeMart. Locally, we have a shop that is called Acme Bikes. I think -- it might be Acme Bicycles, or Acme Bike, Acme Cycling, or Acme Cycle -- I'm not really sure without looking in the phone book.

Your customers will probably eventually find your website, but you might as well make it easier for them to get to you. Here's an evil thought: create a web page based on a misspelling of your competitor's bike shop name.

If you're not convinced, check out Google's data on misspellings of Britney Spears. If people use a legitimate variation of a word rather than a misspelling, Google's spelling correction won't kick in.

Here's a hint if you do forget how to spell Cyclelicious: Do a search for bicycle blog. Cyclelicious will be on the first page at least for the important search engines.

See related: seo, sem