Learn how to avoid keyword cannibalization in SEO, and why it’s important. This guide will show you what is keyword cannibalization and how to identify the problem and fix it.
What is Keyword Cannibalization in SEO
Keyword Cannibalization means that on the same website you have more than one-page targeting or focusing XYZ focus keyword and ranking on that keyword. In simple words, when your various pages or posts rank on search engines for the same keyword.
Now you would think that it’s a good thing that many pages of my site rank on the same keyword.
But it will negatively impact your website’s SEO. How?
Okay now many pages are ranked on the same query but the CTR (Click-Through-Rate) has been split into our both articles (EG: If 100 people see our page, and suppose 50 are clicking on our website, from those 50, 25 are going on our ABC page and the other 25 are clicking on the XYZ page). So it means the SEO performance of our webpages is been decreased (split), and our competitors can easily rank by practicing white hat SEO. So obviously we want our pages to rank on different keywords and get 100%.
Many people argue that it is better if our many pages are ranking on the same keyword. In short term, it will benefit but in long term, it is very bad (I have given you one reason: Split in CTR).
How does Keyword Cannibalization Happen in SEO
Mostly keyword cannibalization happens unintentionally when you create multiple pages with the same primary keyword.
Suppose I am creating two articles:
- Best infographic submission sites
- Infographic Submission in SEO
Maybe, both articles are ranking on the same keyword. So we should check and audit our website from time to time.
How to Avoid Keyword Cannibalization in SEO
Some useful tips to avoid keyword cannibalization:
- Make sure that while doing keyword research, select different keywords for every page.
- From time to time you should SEO audit your website and check if your site is caught by cannibalization.
- If you have no option to target the same keyword, then go for LSI keywords (synonyms)
- Try not to create articles on two similar topics.
Eg:
Article 1: Infographic Submission sites
Article 2: Infographic Submission in SEO
How to check Keyword Cannibalization in SEO
I am not going to suggest you any tool for checking the keyword cannibalization on your website.
Simply follow these steps:
- Use the keyword density checker tool
- Use the tool and check the keyword density of your particular page. After that see the focus keyword of the page (whatever keyword is repeating multiple times in your article, is your focus keyword).
- Create an excel sheet and list down the focus keywords of your all articles.
- Check and analyze that does your website have multiple pages with the same focus keyword.
Conclusion
So this was all on keyword cannibalization in SEO. Hope you loved this small article.
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