3 Ways to Identify & Fix Keyword Cannibalization

What would you normally do when you need to search for goods and services, find some information or make an appointment? Most likely the first thing you would do is turn to your Internet connected device for a quick search. Gone are the days when people massively used print catalogues like Yellow Pages and similar. Remarkably, a staggering 70% of Americans no longer even open newly issued phone books. The era of search engines algorithms has established its dominance. However, the convenience of online presence brings new challenges for businesses: the risk of your content getting lost in the vast amount of information. Search engines are very effective and precise for users who know exactly what they are looking for. But conducting a general broad search and narrowing down the results becomes more complicated.

For local businesses online presence is a bless in terms of reaching to a global audience but the whole world becomes their competitor in turn. So, it is more critical than ever to choose the right keywords to be noticed in the overwhelmed digital landscape.

What are the keywords? These are the words that search engines employ to scan the Internet for matches to the user’s query. The search results are then ranked based on numerous criteria such as popularity, usefulness, and other. Given that keywords are like a magical key that starts a search engine, there is a risk of keyword oversaturation in your content. Striving for better result you may encounter an unpleasant outcome called keywords cannibalization.

What is keyword cannibalisation in SEO?

Search engines like Google were more primitive: they used to believe that if a term was used frequently on a web page, the content is relevant, so some content creators would simply repeat the same term multiple times to increase search rankings. Today, keyword stuffing is the worst thing you can do because advanced algorithms penalize it with lower search rankings, and here the keyword cannibalization occurs as a side effect.

The actual keyword cannibalization meaning is that various pages of the same website’s compete against each other for the same keywords, causing confusion for search engines and potentially leading to lower rankings.

3 Methods for Detecting and Resolving Keyword Cannibalization

Identifying potential keyword cannibalization is relatively straightforward. A search using “Domain + keywords” can reveal relevant information.

Consider a company that offers content marketing services and is called “Marketing & Co”, and you would like to check whether keyword cannibalization takes place, you would search for Marketing&Co, digital marketing and similar variations.

You’ll get a list of results, but will you be satisfied? What if your blog post about digital marketing services from two years ago ranking higher than your most recent and important one? If that’s the case, you’ve come across keyword cannibalization facts. Luckily, you can fix this issue!

1. Review and merge your content.
   The first way is to merge content and delete outdated or irrelevant pieces. You can merge two similar pages offering and explaining the same product or services into one. This technique will not always work, but it will simplify and improve your website’s search engine optimization. You should consider complete removing irrelevant, harmful, or outdated web content. If your company has evolved and yet some older, less professional articles or pages are still ranking higher than your desired site content, delete them.
2. Remove some Keywords.
   Remove keywords if you want to preserve specific parts of text saturated with keywords but they aren’t necessary in that piece of content. This is a slower, more meticulous approach of improving your SEO, but it has the advantage of being incredibly simple to execute.
3. Alter Your Internal Linking and check backlinks.
   If you have web content that redirects to other content on your website, review it carefully. For search engines like Google, links are priority, so if you add a link to another piece of content, a search engine will most likely prioritize the linked content. Change your website’s internal linking so that less important texts redirect to the pages you wish to highlight. Also consider the number of users that have linked back to your content. Assessment can reveal that one of the reasons why less important content is still ranking higher is that other websites continue to promote backlinks. Track backlinks using special software and then contact the webmasters to alter or delete these links.

Modern search algorithms are very sophisticated and selective in content ranking. However, useful and relevant content will always be at the top. At Klik Digital, we use the best methods for optimizing your content and can help you improve your search engine rankings. From content marketing services to marketing services for nonprofits we are delivering professional result.