What is Keyword Cannibalization and How to Avoid it?

If your idea of SEO is rooted in trying to game the algorithm to ensure your page ranks on top, you will likely fall for several mistakes, one of which is keyword cannibalization.

Keyword cannibalization is using multiple pages on your website to target the same keywords. On the surface, this might look like the perfect SEO tactic for guaranteed success.

After all, if you want to rank for certain keywords and avoid keyword stuffing, it only makes sense to use multiple pages to target the same keyword to gain more impressions. Right? Wrong.

It is not just that this is not a good practice. It can have the opposite intended effect, backfire to hurt your website, and significantly lower your rankings. The explanation for why and how this occurs is simple.

SEO is all about competition, right? You are trying to compete with several other websites for the top spots on SERPs. So you take measures to ensure that the information you present fits your target keyword.

What happens when you make multiple pages on your website to target the same set of keywords? It means that you are forcing your website to compete against itself! That is why it is called keyword cannibalization.

Instead of putting your best foot forward by consolidating all your best content for a specific keyword on one webpage, hedging your bets with different web pages can be a dangerous misstep for your website.

So, impressions that should normally go to one specific webpage on your site and then boost your domain authority for that topic get shared across multiple web pages. Hence, you are losing a potential number-one spot in the rankings and diluting your authority.

More so, Google may misinterpret which page is more relevant when you have multiple pages with similar content. The one that should convert more may likely be devalued because Google’s algorithm gets confused.

In any case, if you want to avoid keyword cannibalization or if your website is already suffering from these issues, here are some steps you can take to measure resolution.

Conduct Thorough Keyword Research

Firstly, a keyword cannibalization issue indicates a problem with your keyword research; it’s too limited. The best way to build your website’s authority is through the diversity and richness of your content. So, to avoid or rectify this issue, you need to revisit your keyword strategy.

If you run out of keyword ideas, let the Eye10 Keyword Planner rescue you. Once you enter your website link and the target keyword, it gives you a list of keywords you are already ranking for and another list of ideas and suggestions you should be targeting but is not yet.

More so, the Eye10 tool integrates Google Keyword Planner results, ensuring that you have a broad means of generating endless keyword ideas for your content.

Develop a Comprehensive Content Strategy

Keyword cannibalization may also indicate that you don’t have an overarching content strategy. You are more likely to fall victim to this if you just produce content as you go without consideration for your overall website cohesion.

Instead, after identifying new target keyword ideas, create content headlines along with those ideas. All these headlines will then go into your content calendar, which you should take great care of to ensure its diversity.

Besides the fact that this helps with keyword cannibalization, it also helps ensure that every piece of content you put out contributes meaningfully to your SEO goals, which you should, of course, have already set.

Optimize Your Website Structure

Keyword cannibalization could also indicate a lack of a proper website structure. This also confuses search engines when they crawl your website, as they need to determine which pages are most important and how they relate to each other.

However, you won’t be able to ensure this without a proper structure and architecture. A proper structure means categories and subcategories should create a clear hierarchy of all pages. This not only helps search engine bots but also visitors navigate your website.

One way to optimize your website structure is by using canonical tags to identify the most relevant and most important page of a group of pages targeting a similar set of keywords. The search engine focuses on that canonical page for its ranking. Identifying the use of proper tags is one of the ways the Eye10 On-Page SEO tool helps you.

Use Internal Linking

You might need multiple web pages targeting the same or similar keywords if your SEO strategy does not have an internal linking plan. Internal links help pass ‘link juice’ and are also a way by which search engines understand your site structure.

Instead of creating another webpage with similar content, you can include an internal link to the existing page with the same content you want. This helps you avoid cannibalization and duplication.

It also enhances user engagement and reduces bounce rate since, by following internal links, visitors spend more time on your website. So, indeed, these strategies help you with other areas of SEO, too, not just keyword cannibalization.

Consolidate Similar Pages

Having noticed keyword cannibalization on your website, the next step should be consolidating all similar pages into one web page.

Alternatively, you could update the content to reflect a different set of keywords, but that might be a longer route.

However, note that if you remove any web pages, you should implement a 301 redirect to the one web page that is still standing. This will help you avoid interrupting the user experience of visitors who, otherwise, would be getting 404 error pages.

Conclusion 

Keyword cannibalization is more of a common mistake than most people think. So your website might even suffer from this, and you may not realize it. To determine this, conduct a full-scale audit of the posts on your website.

More so, using Eye10 SEO tools helps you enhance your SEO strategies significantly and avoid common problems like keyword cannibalization. A trial costs $3 only, and it gives you access to all tools in the Eye10 Swiss army knife. Sign up today and experience the difference.