Keyword cannibalization: how to end this problem
Many web pages have keyword cannibalization problems and are not even aware of it. And this is one of the most common problems in the world of web positioning, which usually arises as a result of poor keyword planning.
However, like almost everything in life, it has a solution. So we invite you to read this post in which we will talk about how to solve this problem.
Keyword cannibalization is a frequent problem that affects SEO, but fortunately it can be solved in four simple steps
What exactly is keyword cannibalization?
The cannibalization of keywords arises when on the same web page we have two contents competing for the same keyword, which confuses Google a lot because it does not know which page is the most relevant for that keyword, causing on numerous occasions a decrease in the ranking of the main page.
What are the problems generated by the cannibalization of keywords?
The cannibalization of keywords causes various problems to our marketing strategy:
- It hurts the positioning – This is the main problem that we have already mentioned before, there are two pages fighting over the same keyword and Google does not know who to pay attention to.
- Affects our link building – For the same reason our incoming links will be affected, causing problems in our linkbuilding strategy.
- Lower the authority in your domain – As a result of the above, the authority of our domain is diminished. In the world of SEO everything is a wheel.
- poorest content – If you have several contents dealing with the same topic, it is obvious that not all of them will offer the same quality, since they will be more superficial.
How to fix keyword cannibalization
Although the cannibalization of keywords is a problem that a priori should be solved with proper content planning, assigning a keyword to each page, the truth is that when a page begins to grow in number of contents, it is practically inevitable not to end up suffering a problem of this type, since there is a lot of content with very similar keywords. The good thing is that we have the possibility to rectify this situation.
Discover which articles are positioned by the same keyword
To solve a problem, we first have to detect it, so the first step is to discover which articles are being positioned for the same keywords. How to find out? Making a list with all the keywords and checking the position of them in Google, always in the incognito mode to prevent our search history from influencing the results we get.
There are more specialized tools that will offer us the same information, but if we don't have them within our reach, the manual option is always just as effective, even if it takes longer to carry it out.
Choose the main article for each keyword
Only one article will be able to continue competing for that keyword, so you will have to choose between one of the two. Some factors you can take into account to make this decision:
- Positioning – whatWhich of the two articles has achieved a better positioning?
- The number of conversions – Which achieves a greater number of conversions?
- The quality – Which offers a broader and higher quality perspective on the subject at hand?
- The update – CWhich of the two articles is more up-to-date?
- User behaviors – Analyze the time of permanence in each article and the bounce rate, to know which of the two originates a more positive behavior.
3, 2, 1… fusion!
Why are you going to have two articles positioned for the same keyword if you can have a super complete article with many more possibilities of appearing in the first position of the search results?
Merge your child item with the parent to create great content of excellent quality. It is really about expanding the content offered by the main article with the information of the secondary article so that it is more complete.
Redirect child article to parent
This step is very obvious. If we already have a unique super article, we will have to redirect the secondary post to the main one.
What if you can't just delete the child article? Yes, too, but since it is a page that you have already worked on, it is convenient that first redirects and that when some time has passed you choose to delete it directly.
Submit the new content to Google
Google will not know that you have created a new super article until you tell it. Use the tool Google from Search Console to notify you of the changes you have made.
In this way you will be able to transform your keyword cannibalization problem into excellent content that will help you improve your web positioning. Everything has a solution!