You might have seen multiple pages from the same website ranking in the search engine results for the same keyword. Haven’t you? You think that it’s a good thing because it will attract more impressions from search engine users. But that’s not true every time. It can result in the opposite of what you are thinking. It can be doing more harm than good for your website’s SEO. Because when your website has multiple pages ranking for the same keyword, you are compelling them to compete with each other. This will lower the CTR and conversion rates for each page, which is called keyword cannibalization. Let’s learn more about it.
Definition of Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization is an SEO problem that occurs when multiple web pages of a website target a similar set of keywords. This leads to those pages competing against each other, negatively impacting the rankings of the search engine and organic performance.
How to Identify Keyword Cannibalization?
Here are some easy steps to follow to find cannibalized keywords –
Site search
The most popular and fastest way to identify cannibalization is to find the source through Google Search Engine. You have to use the “site” search operator for the same. That means putting the exact topic name in the double quotes and hitting the search button. All the pages related to that topic will appear in front of you. Now, dig deeper for these SERPs and see whether the pages you want to rank are ranking for the right keyword. If you see that some other pages are outranking the ones you want for a given target keyword, you have found the issue – keyword cannibalization.
Multiple ranking URLs
Witnessing the multiple URLs for a keyword in Google is a cannibalization problem. So, how do you find these keywords?
- Use any SEO tool like Ahref.
- Enter the domain name.
- Go to the organic keywords report and toggle “Multiple URLS only”.
Note that all keywords shown here will tell you that there is a cannibalization issue. Thus, it is advisable to always go through the SERP and ranking history to ensure whether, in reality, the cannibalization issues lie or not.
External tools
The next step in identifying keyword cannibalization is using keyword research tools like Ubersuggest, Google keyword planning, SEMrush, etc, to get the comprehensive data needed to plan your keyword better. It assists in finding keyword cannibalization in SEO faster, thereby reducing the effort and time needed to eliminate the competing pages from your website.
How to Fix Keyword Cannibalization?
The root of the problem determines the way you opt to resolve keyword cannibalization issues. Some possible methods to say goodbye to keyword cannibalization in SEO are –
Creating new landing pages
Does your website have a landing page that has all the product pages listed in one place? If not, create that right away. It serves as an authoritative source page from where you can link to all your different product pages. If there are multiple pages in your website targeting the same keyword, restructure the content written in them to create unique and new landing pages optimized for specific keywords, and hence improve the search engine rankings for your website.
Targeted keyword strategy
Using relevant keywords in your website plays a significant role in affecting your website’s search engine rankings. That is why you can’t ignore the importance of keyword research. You can make a few changes in your keyword strategies to avoid cannibalization. In simple terms, you have to optimize different pages to target different keywords. It is one of the best ways to get ahead of your competitors in terms of offering different content for several search queries pertinent to your industry. Some free tools meant for keyword research are – Answer the Public, Google Search Console, Moz Keyword Explorer, etc.
Content audit
You have made a keyword strategy. What next? Turn to regular content audits. It is done to see whether the content you are publishing aligns with the interest of the readers or your marketing goals or not. Generally, it is said to conduct a content audit every six months after publishing the content. Check the performance of metrics and their position on SERPs. While conducting a content audit, ask the questions like – Do the topics my website has are still relevant? Is the information updated? Am I focusing on the right keywords? Which keywords and topic ideas best align with my marketing goals?
Canonical tags
Many people misunderstand canonical tags as having no index tags, and this refrains them from using these tags on their sites. But when you use them properly, a canonical tag is a premium strategy to fix cannibalization issues. For instance – 2 similar product pages on your affiliate website compete for one broad term. In this case, create a canonical tag from one less important website page to the other. This sends Google the information that although content duplication or similarity exists between the two pages, the page you selected is more important. Canonical tags allow the preference to the product page you have selected.
Strategies to Prevent Keyword Cannibalization
You have got the answer to how to find and fix keyword cannibalization. But sometimes you can prevent this issue altogether so that you don’t have to spend your time, money, and efforts in fixing it. How to avoid cannibalization? Let’s find out.
Separate content for every keyword
Create separate content and a single URL for every keyword you want to rank. This means the keyword “SEO for manufacturing companies” will have only one page, and “SEO for technology companies” will have another. Create a content calendar to make content creation easy, keeping you away from duplicating the content. It makes everything more organized.
301 redirects
In this method, a server sends a 301 HTTP status code to a browser, signaling the redirection of one URL to another. It is used in the case of duplicate content competing against your important page. 301 redirects are used to lead users to the new content. Redirecting users from the redundant pages to the preferred ones helps preserve link equity and avoids cannibalization issues. However, some things to keep in mind while doing this are redirecting users from HTTP to the HTTPS version of your website and removing the pages with 301 codes from your sitemap. Also, don’t use this if you wish to keep the old content. Instead, you can canonicalize it.
Final Thoughts
Believe it or not, identifying, preventing, and fixing keyword cannibalization are important if you want to maintain the visibility of your website in SERPs. Adopting proactive prevention strategies helps you get rid of this threat and fuel your SEO efforts. That being said, if you don’t know how to avoid cannibalization, our SEO experts from SEO Propellant will help you find the right path. Discover how and contact us for an exciting SEO journey.