Keyword Cannibalization- Be Aware of Some Important Facts

One of the things that must be remembered when it comes to Search Engine Optimization is that it takes a lot of effort to ensure a proper and holistic SEO plan. A lot of people assume that there are only a certain number of aspects to ensuring a proper SEO strategy. They usually focus on aspects such as content optimization, keyword planning, link building, and understanding the SEO algorithm and its updates. While these are tremendously important aspects when it comes to SEO, they are not the only things that should be taken into consideration. What sets apart a good SEO strategy from a great one is leveraging lesser-known but hugely advantageous facets of SEO too. For instance, one of the SEO options that most people do not give a second thought to but that is also incredibly helpful is pagination. Similar to that, keyword cannibalization also gets missed out on when it comes to SEO strategy building. However, not paying attention to keyword cannibalization can actually be disastrous. It can break even the best laid out SEO plans. If you plan to grow your website organically and want to improve traffic and audience numbers, one of the things that you must try and ensure is that there is no occurrence of keyword cannibalization on your page. Ensure that you pay attention to this aspect. The good thing, however, is that it is easy to figure out whether this is occurring through a few simple steps, and fairly easy to rectify as well.

How do I figure out if there is any keyword cannibalization happening on my page?

Thankfully, the method to figure out as to whether or not keyword cannibalization is ruining your best-laid SEO strategy is pretty simple. All you have to do is to head over to Google (or any other search engine of your choice – but it is usually Google, who are we kidding) and use the keywords that you have inserted into your content to see where your webpage ranks. If it ranks low with the other pages of your website ranking below or above it, then keyword cannibalization may be occurring. On the other hand, if it ranks high, then you have nothing to worry about. This is an easy and a tremendously easy way of ensuring that there is no keyword cannibalization occurring and can help you formulate steps and take action if you find that it is.

Okay. So there is keyword cannibalization. What now?

If you suspect that there is keyword cannibalization and find that it is affecting your SEO strategy, here are some of the things you can do. First and foremost, stop keyword stuffing. Even if you are tempted to throw in as many keywords as humanly possible, they should make sense and have some relevancy. Secondly, get rid of tremendously duplicated content. This is one of the biggest enemies of SEO and friends of keyword cannibals. If you can merge pages together which have similar content, do it. Otherwise, get rid of outdated content when you update your page.