A good search engine optimization (SEO) strategy will make your website’s relevant pages visible to the right people. This can be accomplished through a variety of on-page SEO services, such as on-page optimization, a content optimization strategy, and collaboration with content marketing experts. Done correctly, you’ll have the right page climbing the rankings, bringing you the relevant traffic you require.
However, when it comes to strategies such as SEO writing services, one thing you should be aware of when working with content marketing experts is the steps they take to avoid keyword cannibalization. Assume you don’t have a comprehensive content optimization strategy or an on-page SEO checklist. In that case, you may have pages that overlap, and your own pages will compete with each other, neither of which will produce the desired results.
As a result, when selecting content marketing experts to work with, you should be aware of the on-page SEO services they employ as well as the website content management steps they take to avoid cannibalization on search engine results pages (SERPs).
What Is Keyword Cannibalization?
So, what exactly is keyword cannibalization? Simply put, it is an effect that may occur on your website if you have multiple blog posts or pages that rank for the same keyword. This may appear to be a good thing because your web pages take up more space on search engine results pages, but it is not.
Google and other search engines want to provide users with relevant results for their queries. However, if both of your pages are vying for the top spot in a keyword search, you’ll find that they’re competing with each other. As a result, rather than one page obtaining a high authority domain for a keyword, two pages will consume that authority as they compete for the top spot.
What impact does keyword cannibalization have on my SEO strategy?
Assume you have two pages that are both optimised for the same keyword. Even if they are on the same website and check every box on your on-page SEO checklist, these pages are essentially competing with each other. When Google’s crawlers index your site, the algorithm is unable to determine which page should be displayed for a given keyword, so it displays both.
Consider the impact of cannibalization on users. Bounce rate, click through rate, conversion rate optimization (CRO), and backlinks are all factors that can affect your SEO rankings. So, instead of directing users to the most relevant page on your site to obtain all of those numbers, you end up splitting them across two pages.
Another way to look at it is how two pages can harm each other’s technical SEO performance, not just because of keywords but also because of intent. Assume you have content appearing for the same keywords and both intend to reach out to users in the early stages of their purchasing journey. In that case, each page may be impeding the ability of the other to rank higher.
When you identify keyword cannibalization in your content gap analysis, you must take action to prevent your pages from competing.
Some of the negative consequences that can occur are as follows:
• Reducing your page’s authority :
We’ve already talked about the significance of authority in your digital marketing strategy. When you have a dedicated page on a subject, you can establish that one page is an authority page that is more likely to rank high in the search results. However, when there is keyword cannibalization, you are effectively splitting your click-through rate between two pages.
• You are diluting the experience of your users :
It’s always preferable to provide users with the information they need with as few clicks as possible. Your website requires them to look at multiple pages rather than having everything they need for the topic on one page.
• Google may devalue the incorrect page :
You may have intended for one page to be more prominent than the other. However, due to cannibalization, Google’s algorithm must decide which one is the best. And it’s possible that Google will select the incorrect page.
• Decreases the value and quality of your page :
Google and other search engines want to provide their users with useful information. If it appears that more than one page is ranking for a specific keyword, you may not have enough content about your niche.
Identifying the Risks of Keyword Cannibalization and Preventing It
With a search engine like Google, detecting keyword cannibalization is simple. Enter “site:<your website> <keyword phrase>” into your search bar to conduct a quick content gap analysis. It should display a list of pages that rank for those keywords. Partnering with knowledgeable content marketing people and digital marketing professionals can prevent two pages from competing for the same keywords.
Webmasters can add this to their on-page SEO checklist by checking Google Search Console for cannibalization.
Finding more than one of your pages as a result of a keyword search isn’t always a bad thing. It’s common for more than one page to appear if your product or service falls into the same niche or industry.
Digtial Buddha Technologies Provides Efficient On-Page SEO Services That Avoid Keyword Cannibalization
At Digital Buddha Technologies, we take precautions to ensure that your website is not impeding its ability to rank higher in search engine results. We take care to avoid keyword cannibalization when providing SEO writing services, CRO audit services, or content marketing services.
Following a thorough website audit to identify keyword cannibalization on prospective clients, identify the issue and recommend the necessary solution to minimize cannibalization without compromising the visits and user count already gathered from both pages.
Performing a Content Audit
Part of content website management is making sure that all of your product and service pages, as well as your blogs and articles, are not competing with one another. During a content audit, we perform a content gap analysis and examine all of your pages using tools such as Google Search Console to see if there is duplicate content or instances where two pages are similar and potentially at risk of keyword cannibalization.
We can recommend a number of solutions based on your content audit. Resolving instances of keyword cannibalization typically entails incorporating the following on-page optimization strategies into your website content management:
Merging pages
If two similar pages say nearly the same thing, it may be best to combine the content into a single larger page. This entails taking the best content and adding the extra information that it did not originally provide but appears in the other.
Redirect
Internal linking and previous link building strategies may already point to both pages, making merging difficult. In this case, you could keep the link to one of the pages but redirect it to the one you want to keep.
Fixing your internal links
Internal linking can give Google a good idea of which pages are more important than others when crawlers index your website. It can be difficult to determine which page is more important if both are linked equally by other pages.
Removing obsolete content
One possible reason for duplicate content is that the older article refers to older, out-of-date information, whereas the newer page is the more up-to-date version. Depending on factors such as traffic, we could delete the one with outdated content or redesign the stronger link to have more up-to-date content.
Check Your Historic Rankings
So apart from a quick Google search, we can identify keyword cannibalization using keyword research tools such as Ahrefs and SEMrush.
Based on your ranking keywords, content, and history, you can begin to determine whether a page isn’t ranking because it is competing with another page.
Because not all Google results are necessarily a sign of cannibalization, ranking history is a more accurate way of detecting an issue in your content optimization strategy. Regularly checking your website for potential content issues is part of our website content management.
Allow Digital Buddha Technologies to protect your website against keyword cannibalization
When employing SEO professional services or developing your content optimization strategy, you must consider the impact of keywords on one page on the rest of your website. At Digital Buddha Technologies, our on-page SEO services, such as content writing and CRO auditing, are designed to increase your website’s visibility on search engines, which includes taking precautions to avoid instances such as keyword cannibalization.
That is why you require the content marketing services of content marketing experts who understand how to manage your website content and ensure each page is competitive with other websites – not just your own.
Contact Digital Buddha Technologies today to receive a free website audit and CRO audit and to learn more about the services that can improve the performance of your website
