When it comes to content on your website, it is important to consider the unique use of keywords and other SEO practices. Have a look at our guide on how you can avoid content cannibalisation on your website and in your SEO strategy.
What is Content Cannibalisation?
Content cannibalisation is known as the strategy of targeting the same keyword across multiple web pages. By not considering this in your strategy you can create several issues. These include:
Less and a Loss of Conversions
This is due to the likelihood that you website will receive less traffic than other websites because you have content cannibalisation present. This is because the search engine gets confused on which page to rank and therefore prioritises another website.
Copy that is not Unique
If you use the same keyword across multiple pages this could impact the overall quality and ranking of each page. This is because, when Google crawls your website, the 'spiders' will automatically be directed to a page with lower quality which will in turn, impact the ranking of all pages on your website.
Value of Anchor Text
The value of anchor text is lost due to several pages targeting the same keyword. Keywords that contain overused anchor text can come across as spammy and will affect your SEO strategy. This can lead to the wrong page and will negatively reviewed by Google.
How to Avoid Content Cannibalisation
In order to prevent this and improve your SEO strategy, you should focus on the following:
Internal Linking
This method helps to increase the popularity score and credibility of a website. In order for Google's spiders to identify the best page for the targeted keyword, it is important to include internal linking onto the most relevant content.
Content Organisation
If you have several pages on your website ranking for the same keywords, it can be a good idea to organise this content in terms of relevance. In addition to this, you could also target variable keywords that pose some similarity but aren't a complete duplication across pages. For example, a variable keyword for 'SEO near me' could be 'local SEO' or 'SEO in (your location)'.
Anchor Text
To help with this, you should focus on using natural keyword that are specific and actionable to the right page. This points Google in the right direction in order to rank for the most relevant page on your website.
Canonicalization
Canonicalization is used to tell users that similar content has been used on purpose. This helps to avoid risks involved with duplicate content. However, too much canonicalization may lead Google to consider your page as messy, therefore impacting the ranking. In order to avoid this, it is important to know that canonicalization can be used for different content both with or without a trailing slash. It is also crucial to canonicalize when switching content to HTTPS.
