Google and keywords with and without accents. How to approach optimization for both?

[7decode]

This is more of a problem for people optimizing for keywords in spanish, french, german and such.

It is well known that SERPs for keywords with and without accents are different. However, I haven't been able to discover how do I make the incorrectly misspelled keywords rank without messing up the site's content.

Another fact to take into account is that more than half the searches made in these languages are done without accents because, let's face it, it's just too much work.

An example of my specific problem: The misspelled keyword "cursos de ingles" is currently ranking higher than the correctly spelled keyword "cursos de inglés". However, the misspelled keyword "clases de ingles" is not ranking at all and the correctly spelled keyword "clases de inglés" is on the first page. How is this possible?

Now, how can I optimize the misspelled keywords to rank higher without misspelling the content on my site?

Thank you!

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[lethal0r]

I once tried putting the mispelled variants in the keyword meta tag but that did nothing. Maybe you should try it? But I wouldn't expect much.

Another way is to put it into your content, but letting the reader know you mispelled it on purpose. Maybe something like "we offer clases de inglés (or clases de ingles if you can't find the accent button!)".

That way they know you mispelled it on purpose, and google still finds the word on the page.

[rayvensoft]

I also have had to deal with this in my sites.  In most cases, I actually go with the norm that the language is based in.  By this I mean that if the page is in English, even if I am using a Spanish or French word, I tend not to use the accent.  This is primarily because based on my statistics - I have been doing multi-language SEO for my sites for over 5 years - most people do not have their keyboards configured to make accents.
   So, if somebody was looking for information on:

Mexico

It is much much more likely that they would put that in google instead of:

México

Most non-tech people would struggle to figure out how to put an é, ñ or a ö on U.S. keyboards.

Of course there are some places on your site that you need to put the accents, especially if it is something like language education where they expect it to be with an accent, but otherwise I do not put them.  Of course, if you have your entire page translated into Spanish or French, then put the accents in the correct places because there they will be expected and the searchers will probably look using accents.  As you probably know, an accent in Spanish, French, etc can change the entire meaning of a word.

I hope this helps.

P.S. Hola desde Querétaro.

[7decode]

Hahaha you work for the competition!

Yes, the complete site is in Spanish, however, most of my users are not searching with accents, which is the real issue here. frustrated

P.S. Saludos desde el DF

[rayvensoft]

Hi Bibiana,
   Actually, I am the competition (own the business)   But hey, nothing I am telling you is a secret and there is nothing like some good competition to make me more motivated to work. 
  If you are interested, send me a Private Message here on SEOmoz and we can talk more.   We may be able to help each other out.  It we collaborated a bit it could help both of the businesses out.

Saludos y que tengas un buen día.