What Is Keyword Cannibalisation And Why Should You Avoid It?

When adding content to your website, you may be focused on several specific keywords that best sum up your business. Understandably, if you have a product page for a specific keyword, then you are likely to have blogs surrounding that topic too. The more content around your subject, the better, right? However, using a particular keyword too much on your website, then this could actually be detrimental to your SEO ranking, thanks to keyword cannibalisation. So, what is keyword cannibalisation, and how can you use this effectively?

What Is Keyword Cannibalisation?

Using the same keyword across multiple pages on your site is what is known as keyword cannibalisation. Instead of boosting your chances for your site to rank for that keyword, you actually put each page in competition with each other.

This means, instead of boosting your SEO with lots of keyword focus, you are actually splitting your results across all the pages that have the same focus keyword. So if you have lots of short blog posts, product pages and web pages all with the same focus keyword, search engines will start to rank all of these pages against each other, choosing the one it thinks matches the keyword best.

Put simply, using the same keyword across several pages is not showing your knowledge effectively to Google. Whereas condensing all of that information onto one page, with one focus keyword can establish your authority on the subject.

The Keyword Myth

The more use of the same keyword means more chance of ranking higher for that keyword.

The Keyword Truth

Overusing the keyword on one page looks like keyword stuffing, an SEO no-no. Using the same focus keyword across a range of pages leads to negative keyword cannibalisation.

What’s Wrong With Keyword Cannibalisation?

Having multiple pages with the same keyword can have several negative impacts on your site, such as;

1.     Search Engine Devaluation

If you have lots of pages with the same keywords, search engines will pick the page that is the best fit for the keyword. This may not be the page that you think is the most suitable for the keyword. This could lead your more relevant pages to suffer devaluation.

2.     Split Your CTR

Having lots of pages with the same keyword will mean your audience may click on lots of different pages to find their answers. These pages may be somewhat relevant but may not be the high-authority page that would best serve your business.

3.     Link Dilution

Instead of one source of information for backlinks, these backlinks may be spread across several pages which can dilute the links, lowering the authority of the page. Similarly, internal links may divert people to other pages rather than the one main page of authority on the subject matter.

How To Fix Keyword Cannibalisation

There are lots of ways to improve keyword cannibalisation. The first thing to do is create a site plan for your website and make sure every page has a different focus keyword. If you find pages where the keyword is duplicated, you may find it better to consolidate all of the content into one page. This can give it more substance and authority.

Alternatively, it may help to have one canonical source page, and then use keyword variations for the other pages. You can also conduct keyword research to help find more keyword variations for your site.

If you need help improving your search engine rankings and managing your keywords to prevent keyword cannibalisation, get in touch for your free SEO analysis.