Avoiding keyword cannibalization between the pages of a website is essential for strategy and editorial calendar. Because in this way you avoid that two or more resources fight to reach a good ranking in the SERP, hindering each other.
Because keyword cannibalization means just that: overlapping web pages, posts, sections, and product sheets of E-commerce that have the same search intent. That is the search intent,
That is why people search for something on Google even through different keywords. Different keywords can have the same search intent
And if you don’t optimize this SEO copywriting point, you risk proceeding with the hand brake on, better to avoid keyword cannibalization. But how to proceed?
The topics of the post
- Start with good keyword research
- Take a closer look at the SERP and the contents
- Evaluate two keywords with an SEO tool
- Focus your writing on search intent
- Evaluate blog tags and categories well
- Check if you’ve already written anything
Start with good keyword research
Have you already done good keyword research for your blog or that of your customers? Perfect, this is an essential starting point. Writing SEO-optimized articles doesn’t just mean curating title tags and URLs by inserting high-volume keywords: you need to find keywords that help you identify search intent to satisfy.
The first screening must be done in this place: you have to eliminate the related keywords, broad match, or phrases that the tools extrapolate but are not of interest to you.
In these cases, there is no useful SEO tool that you can use instead of the brain: it must be your competence that understands the right balance. For example, it is correct to think that the keywords highlighted in this box have the same search intent.
These are queries that hide the need for pricing information. Attention, the question is important: will it be the same for the need for a price list? Perhaps in the latter case, there would be a need for a different organization of the content.
Maybe it’s better to organize the numbers on a table or with a PDF to download. To avoid keyword cannibalization you need to take a further step.
Take a closer look at the SERP and the contents
If you have doubts about two keywords, or just want to find out how to best address them to get a good writing job, you must follow one of the main SEO copywriting tips: study the SERP. Do a search with the same query and study the contents, study what works for those searches, and analyze what ranks.
With what content and in what form: text only or also visual? Are there any videos and screenshots? Analyze what works and whether there are the same resources in both cases. Without fossilizing you and always remembering that correlation does not imply causation.
At this stage of the work I think it is also useful to start making a good division within the strategic document that manages the seed keywords used as a basis for your content: are they informative or transactional keywords?
The former – for example, a long tail keyword more useful for the title of a blog than a landing page – can they also be useful for conquering commercial and transactional SERP? The answers come from observation (I know, it takes time):
“MC can be text, images, videos, page features (eg, calculators,
games, KissAnime), or it can be user-generated content such as videos, reviews, articles, etc. that users have added or uploaded to the page.”
But the SERP study can help you seriously. Because this way you can understand more about the nature of the main content – what to create to satisfy that search intent? An article or a product page? Need a video or a PDF?
Evaluate two keywords with an SEO tool
Among the best free SEO tools to use in these cases I suggest the tool made available by Filippo Jatta: factor. it/SERP-google. What exactly is it for? It helps you evaluate if two different queries have the same search intent.
It works like this: enter two terms and get a comparison between two SERPs. Results highlighted in green indicate pages that are found in both cases. As you can see from the example below this is the situation.
If these duplicates are particularly present also in the first positions it means that the two terms are synonymous even if they have a different graphic form.
And that it is useless to create two articles with the main keyword dedicated to each of these alternatives: one is enough to aim for both positions. So you can avoid keyword cannibalization of articles on your personal or business blog.
Focus your writing on search intent
The SEO writing of an article is made up of details, many. Like optimizing the title tag, permalink, and H1. Here you do well to follow the basic optimization rules that suggest you use the most important keywords. But then? What to do?
To avoid keyword cannibalization between your article and other content, stay focused on the focus that you have taken care to include in the SEO title, in the URL.
And also in the meta description. No need for unnecessary digressions, focus on the topic even when you enter H2 and H3. We must not go off-topic, even with internal links. The important thing is to always follow what Google defines as a beneficial purpose.
“Understand the true purpose of the page. Websites or pages without any beneficial purpose, including pages that are created with no attempt to help users, or pages that potentially spread hate, cause harm, or misinform or deceive users, should receive the Lowest rating.”
Namely the purpose, the goal: each page must have the main content that helps to archive this work. That is to give a concrete benefit to the user.
Evaluate blog tags and categories well
The SEO writing an article is not enough to avoid cannibalization of keywords within a website. Especially in blogs were to fight against publications you can also find other pages that are not very visible but worthy of note.
I speak mainly of tags and categories, the taxonomies that help organize the structure of the blog. Remember that these archives can have a search intent and you should avoid pages that conflict with other taxonomies, articles, and pages.
Also, pay particular attention to the tags: they must not overlap to create different archives from the point of view of the label but the same in meaning.
Check if you’ve already written anything
Last step before moving on to online writing: check Google to see if you already rank for the keywords you want to use as a starting point. A simple search as anonymous is enough to have a useful reference. Alternatively, you can use tools like Semrush and Seozoom for thorough verification.
It is also always useful to do a further check in the internal search of the website because in many cases you may have already written something that has not positioned itself.
And that maybe it needs an update. The best way to avoid keyword cannibalization is prevention. Before writing, check if you have already addressed the topic. If so, it is worth updating the old articles. Do you agree? Do you work in this way or do you have questions to investigate? Leave everything in the comments.
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