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If you have been running a website for a few years, you may have multiple pages targeting the same keywords. Because these posts target the same terms, they may compete against each other on the search engine results page (SERP). It is important to analyze your posts to determine if multiple pages or posts are targeting the same keyword. In this blog, you will learn how to determine if this is happening on your website.

What Is Keyword Cannibalization?

Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages are targeting the same term or keywords. This often results in pages competing for the same term. When more than one page has the same target, it can confuse the bot that crawls your website. Google will struggle to decide what page to rank and, as a result, there is potential that neither of these pages may show on the SERP.

Keyword cannibalization often goes unnoticed by individuals and businesses that are running a website. If you were to combine two competing posts, it would make it easier for the bot to crawl and improve your overall SEO health by providing the searcher with richer content. Keyword cannibalization is a problem that can harm the SEO potential of your website’s posts and pages. By having a better understanding of this issue, you can improve your position in the SERP for certain keywords.

Identifying Competing Posts

As mentioned above, keyword cannibalization occurs when two or more posts are competing for the same keyword. While it may be hard to immediately pinpoint the exact post causing keyword cannibalization, it’s useful to identify groups of pages that may be suffering from it. Creating a spreadsheet that lists all your website’s posts, with their associated URLs and keywords, is a helpful place to start.

Fixing Keyword Cannibalization

To fix keyword cannibalization, you may need a complete site structure overhaul. This is where it’s useful to call upon the help of experts that can restructure your site and optimize the content for both users and search engines. Here are some of the ways that you can restructure your site to combat keyword cannibalization:

Combining Thin Posts

Google wants to provide its users with the best content possible, and if your site’s content doesn’t add much value, there’s little chance it will rank well. One strategy to combat this is to combine thin content into a single content-rich page. This can help users by giving them easy access to all the information they need.

Creating a Landing Page

If all of your pages have unique and substantial content, you could also create a landing page that organizes the information. In the example below, you could turn “shoes” into a landing page that links to your information on specific types of shoes. This creates a more keyword-rich page that will likely rank better in the SERP.

Keyword cannibalization is a common website issue but taking steps to reorganize and reoptimize your content can improve the authority of pages on your site. To learn more about more SEO strategies, head over to BluShark Digital’s Shark Tank to read our latest blogs.