What Is Keyword Cannibalization?
Keyword Cannibalization happens when a website has more than one page based on the very same keyword. When this happens, Google will be forced to decide which page is actually the most important to a search query. It’ll pick one of them to show up in the tests, and maybe it’s not the one you want.
For a number of factors, keyword cannibalization isn’t an ideal scenario. We’re going to explore why in this post and then I’ll show you how to tackle the issue. SEO is an investment for the future. No one wants to fall behind. It is important to have a strong SEO strategy for long term investment. Read more about the latest SEO trends here. Now let’s shift our focus back to the Topic.
How Does Keyword Cannibalization have an Impact On Your SEO?
Keyword cannibalization really has an impact on SEO. There are plenty of cases that experienced a quite drastic change in the search engine rankings. It can have an impact on;
- The conversion rate
There are multiple websites, apparently correct but diluting the impact instead of focusing just a single keyword-relevant subpage. It is possible that one or a few of those pages would convert better than others from multiple pages on the same topic. So when this happens it can impact on an overall conversion rate when tracking through analytics. Multiple Pages ranking for the same keywords can affect the overall conversion rate.
- Quality of content
It is difficult on many pages to produce equally useful content on the same subject. This first victim is quality; the material can be straightforwardly duplicated over many pages in extreme cases.
- External Linking
As you are aware of the fact Quality Backlinks forms the core of the SEO strategy when done right. The links juice would be distilled into these when referring to multiple websites, instead of being focused on targeting and improving only one post. Read more on how Quality backlinks can boost your SEO.
5 Ways To Avoid Keyword Cannibalization
- Merging The Similar Content
When you have two web pages that do similar things, including a web page that recommends good dog food and a page that lists bad dog food, you may want to take all of that material and place it on a single page.
This approach does not automatically work with every case, but the mixing of the content does simplify and improve the search engine visibility of your website, quite often.
- Replacing Or Deleting Irrelevant Content
This is a serious case to consider if you want to avoid Keyword cannibalization. But you may want to consider fully removing web content from the problem – especially if it is no longer important to your website or irrelevant to the context. It is important that you repurpose and make changes in your content as your brand or business evolves which makes it more relevant to the current scenario. When the material no longer exists, so the question doesn’t exist anymore.
2. Keep The Best For Your Best Content
Always Make sure to pair the most impressive content with the most beneficial keywords while working out the pages can help the company put the best foot forward for and target keywords. This could mean keywords that are the most popular in overall searches, those that are most common to your particular industry, or those that have the least (and therefore the least resistance) to rank well on your pages.
3. Constant Updating Of Internal Links
Make sure the anchor text for internal links matches the target keyword for the page to which it is connected. At the same time, avoid linking a target keyword to any page which is not targeted.
With the keyword cannibalization issue now resolved, the next step is to take measures to prevent slipping into this issue again. To do so, it requires a constant content marketing strategy that aims to encourage and push new and relevant content and updating the existing one to exist in their own space in your asset. This helps to keep your content doesn’t compete with each other which has a negative impact on their ranking.
4. Perform A Periodic Audit
Doing so will help you fully understand your situation as to which keywords are currently linked to your content, as well as the search rankings that the content yields. Start by creating a spreadsheet that includes your website URLs along with page information including the target keyword, title, meta summary, and internal links. This audit sets the stage for implementing changes to the plan which will boost the rankings and performance.
To Conclude
Once it comes to determining search ranks, modern search algorithms are much more advanced and discerning. With the regular updates keep coming on it is important to keep your content updated relevant to the context. Those days are gone where keyword stuffing simply helps in ranking you or taking you to the top of the google.
Good and relevant content that matches with the context is now what determines your ranking, so making sure you don’t cannibalize keywords can help you better highlight your intended content and get the exposure it deserves.
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