Have you ever wondered why our blog posts never rank? Many times, we focus on ranking for the same keywords for multiple blog posts.
But, how do we tackle keyword cannibalization in SEO journey? What’s the best way to pick a unique keyword for every blog? Let’s find out!
Keyword cannibalization is an extremely well-researched and demanding topic. It simply means focusing on multiple keywords for multiple posts that confuse the search engines about which article you should actually rank to get opposition, views, and sales.
Our focus is to achieve the best results possible to get maximum benefits.
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Keyword Cannibalization In SEO
From an SEO perspective, keyword cannibalization hampers the way you do blogging and grow your website as doing this will actually harm and penalize your content strategy, and your website will not grow in the long term.
SEO needs clean strategies and this keyword cannibalization technique is not good enough as of today, especially in this AI world of digital marketing.
Still, many bloggers repeat this and affect their new websites, especially beginners they fall into this trap but how to avoid this, and why it happen? Let’s see right now and before that’s let’s know a bit about keyword cannibalization.
What Is Keyword Cannibalization?
Keyword cannibalization in simple terms is all about the fact when we try to rank for multiple keywords with respect to the same keyword and this negatively affects search rankings as it confuses search engines on which page they should first rank according to the keyword provided.
In short, if you have used and targeted the same focused keyword for multiple blog posts then it will confuse search engines and audiences too, this is called keyword cannibalization.
Keyword cannibalization can even lead to duplicity and this often affects your rankings and SEO.
Keyword Cannibalization Example
Without practical examples, it’s hard to understand this particular concept and hence focus on these examples and try to rank for better positions and grow your online business.
1. Best Laptop Or Best Running Shoes
If you have 2 different blog posts mentioning these same keywords like domain.com/best-running-shoes then this is keyword cannibalization and how will Google know which page should be given priority and importance first?
2. Home Page & Blog Post
Let’s say you have a domain name bestbooks.com and you rank for the keyword fiction books and your other blog or page ranks for the same keyword, well that’s an issue!
It can also happen for following things on a website.
3. Multiple Blogs With The Same Keyword
Beginners especially write multiple blogs but many times they forget they have targeted the same keyword and this leads to confusion for search engines like Google it doesn’t rank your website for that particular keyword or term and you lose ranking, and views.
4. Multiple Pages With The Same Keyword
The same can happen with pages too but let’s say the home page and another page are targeted with the same focused keyword, many times, even the landing page targets the same keyword and this affects your website and its SEO in the long term.
5. Multiple Categories On The Same Keyword
If one of your categories is shoes, and the other is shining shoes, or formal shoes, even this may cause keyword cannibalization and affect your rankings.
Why Keyword Cannibalization Is Bad?
It’s bad especially when it affects your organic rankings and performance, and because of keyword cannibalization your website will fall for rankings hence make sure there is a real cannibalization issue going on since many times the issue is not so big.
Remember, keyword cannibalization is bad if your organic ranking affects your overall SEO site performance and structure.
How Keyword Cannibalization Happens?
This happens when:
- Multiple keywords are affecting the website by ranking for the same keyword.
- Targeting the search intent with the same focused keyword.
- High-quality posts can beat keyword cannibalization hence remember that only beating low-quality content by focusing on consistency and high quality can make sure that you do well in the future and even rank your website.
Always make sure you avoid these things in the first page since this is not the best way especially for a beginner to handle a website and do blogging.
This is a major issue and must be resolved accordingly.
How Keyword Cannibalization Affects A Website?
- Even from an SEO perspective, it becomes tougher to rank for better rankings and your website can be punished by Google too.
- If there are 2-3 pages ranking for the same keyword and even if one ranks well, the other 2 can receive a penalty and even hammer one of your pages ranking.
- How will a search engine determine which post is better and why it should be pushed? Always try to focus on unique keywords for multiple posts or pages.
Always focus on white hat SEO practices and try to include multimedia, better high-quality posts for your audience consistently and make sure that you do your best by improving your link-building and making backlinks.
How To Find Keyword Cannibalization Issues?
First things first, look for pages that target the same keyword and try to make a doc file and table, and start listing the names of articles focusing on the same keyword.
Look whether the intent is the same or not because it’s what will make sure the search is interesting and you will be able to work on fixing the issue.
There are many options to do this like:
Do Content Audit
Content auditing is the right way to determine what can affect your website growth and how you will be auditing your entire website.
If your website is new then for you content auditing is easy relatively and especially for a beginner, please focus on content audit.
Site Search On Search Engines
Search for the site on a search engine like site:yourdomain.com.
This way you can know which pages are causing the issue.
Searching on search engines can immediately tell you whether your website is in problem or it’s fine.
Search engines are mirrors for our website and no AI can teach us this better than self-better authentic work.
History
Go to the history and check for keyword cannibalization or search on platforms like WordPress under the posts, and pages section for better understanding.
Search Website Name
Search your website name using ctrl + F and check for duplicity on search engines like Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, Google, etc.
This is a quite efficient technique to understand how our website can be traced for free. It’s a good practice for free content audit and you must do this from time to time.
Search your website name and look for the best possible results and you will be doing a lot better than your actual competitors in reality.
How Do You Fix Keyword Cannibalization Issues?
To fix the issue kindly focus more on:
- Focus on long-tail keywords and limit this problem
- If multiple pages rank for the same term, combine them into one single page for improved authority and credibility
- Kindly delete outdated pages or thin content, which will affect your beautiful website and its performance
- Join all the similar sub-topics and combine them to make an ultimate guide. This will ensure that your website ranks for better keywords
Following all the above strategies will eventually make sure you do better with your website.
Keyword Cannibalization Tools
There are so many keyword cannibalization tools in the market that you can use eventually to receive better rankings and even quickly identify what pages need to be corrected.
Remember that tools are effective in quickly telling the performance of your entire website hence do better and leverage specific tools for specific tasks and every tool is unique in it’s own way and performs better accordingly.
Here are some of the best tools that can actually see keyword cannibalization:
- Moz Keyword Explorer
- Google Search Console
- SEO.AI
Conclusion
You must create unique, high-quality content that represents your brand instead of focusing on spamming online hence as a beginner especially practice to avoid keyword cannibalization in SEO and save your website in the future to jump into higher rankings.
Remember, you and your content must provide value to the audience and focus on white hat SEO practices.
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