Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Keyword cannibalization - blog posts vs. site content
-
As an example, I am trying to rank for the term "ice cream". I have site content pages that relate to "chocolate ice cream", "vanilla ice cream", etc.These content pages have been SEO optimized using best practices.
Would I be ruining my SEO work if I begin to publish blog posts for the same keywords that my content pages target? Am I basically forced to find alternative keywords and only target one page per keyword?
-
Gotta disagree with this one. Creating high quality blog content with the same keywords you are targeting on your products page can be a good strategy. The blog post will add more content related to your keyword on your site, increasing relevancy. It's also a lot easier to build links to a blog than a product page.
Just make sure to link from the blog post to the product page, and the product page can get a boost. If you rank really high in Google, you could even get 2 listings for that keyword. If for some reason the blog content outranks the product page, you can just take that same content and throw it on the product page with a canonical from the blog post. If all else fails, you can 301 redirect it.
-
Ice cream is a broad and deep topic and you could write a lot of blog posts without running out of unique material. Every blog post that you write should be about a topic that is different from anything else that is already on your site and be interesting, informative and perhaps humorous as well.
If your site (and pages) are powerful enough google will display two, three or more of your pages in the top ten.
I spend a lot of time writing content that most people would consider to be cannibalizing - and it brings in a lot of longtail traffic and takes traffic away from my competitors. I do it intentionally. There's no sin about it.
-
I understand. So basically my evergreen content page can be domain.com/chocolate-ice-cream (targeting "chocolate ice cream")
My blog post page can then be domain.com/blog/top-10-chocolate-ice-creams, which is in effect targeting for "Top 10 Chocolate Ice Creams". Additionally, within the post it would be ideal to reference and link to the evergreen content page as is appropriate.
This method would in effect be targeting the keywords:
- chocolate ice cream
- Top 10 Chocolate Ice Creams
By doing so this will help the site rank for these 2 terms, and overall for the head term Chocolate Ice Creams.
-
Hello,
By creating blog posts on the content your trying to rank for is a very smart move, actually, if it is done right. When your writing a blog post on Vanilla Ice Cream, every time you write about a page that relates on other content on your website, for example, if you mentioned ice cream, place a link there to your ice cream page. Also, with blogs, a very powerful tool is to have a "related posts" section, not only does this help build an internal linking structure, it also can interest readers to read other articles or content on your website.
Remember not to go overboard with focusing on keywords, you need to make sure that your website is friendly to the readers. If you are forcing yourself to change the structure of the content to change the keywords your optimizing for, it may lose it's readability. Google, along with many other search engines have put a lot of time into semantic cues, so they may infer that even though your not using the same keyword (something like Popsicle instead of ice pop), they can infer that your referring to the same thing.
My recommendation is to place a link on the blog post to the page you want to rank, and you should be okay,
Hope this helps
Zach
-
Would I be ruining my SEO work if I begin to publish blog posts for the same keywords that my content pages target? Am I basically forced to find alternative keywords and only target one page per keyword?
In short, yes.
When Google provides search results they need to search trillions of pages to determine which result is most likely to satisfy a user's query. One of the key components of their algorithm is relevancy. If you have a page titled "chocolate ice cream" and then a blog article with the same title, which result should be returned to a user who searches in Google for "chocolate ice cream"?
If you offer multiple pages with the same keyword focus you run into an issue called cannibalization. You can solve that issue by narrowing the focus of one of the pages. For example, the main page on your site is what I would refer to as "evergreen" content. 10 years from now someone can read that page and the information is likely still valid. Your blog often offers fresh content which is more time sensitive. Some possible topics for an article:
Top 10 Chocolate Ice Creams in the world
Lowest Calorie Chocolate Ice Cream
Chocolate Ice Cream Recipes
I would also recommend being very careful when providing content on two similar keywords. It takes a level of expertise to do it in such a way that it adds value to your site. One helpful step is to use anchor text. If you write an article on "Chocolate Ice Cream Recipes" then one time in the article when you refer to "Chocolate Ice Cream" present it as an anchor link to your main page.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I want to Start a site on pakistani Niche, How to pick keyword?
Hey Guys I want to start a site, just Like Packages Lab (Pakistani Site), this site cover article which has searchers only in Pakistan Like Check this article : https://packageslab.com/jazz-internet-packages/ In this article the owner covered different Keywords such Jazz Daily Internet Packages, Jazz Weekly Internet Packages and many more, The question is that how he knows to cover all these keywords in just one article why not he writing a separate article because Jazz Daily internet packages, Jazz Weekly Internet packages have a lot of searches according to Keyword everywhere extension. Can someone explain this, because I also want to start a site?
Keyword Research | | ndjiur760 -
Paid vs Organic Keyword Optimisation
Hi Im wondering whether I should optimise my site with Organic search terms that drive traffic to the site or the paid terms i use in Google search ads?
Keyword Research | | aplnzmarch180 -
A Solution to Keywords Being Grouped in Google Keyword Planner
Hi guys, I am trying to get search traffic for a list of keywords which I put together a few years ago for one of my clients, this was before Google made changes to their Keyword Planner. When I am adding the list into Google Keyword Planner it is "grouping" a number of the keywords/phrases together, and therefore removing 13 of the keywords from the original list of 59 keywords. Is there a way around this so I can get search volume for the original list, and not the cut down one? I am specifically using Google Keyword Planner as I want to get search volume for a number of specific locations in the UK. Any comments/feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! Jack. I19Op
Keyword Research | | ChemistryMarketing1 -
Should I make a blog post or landing page to rank?
Hi, I have some keywords (2-5 words) which I would like to rank for (and use them for AdWords campaigns). Also, I have some great and helpful content for those user queries to share. Now what is the better strategy?: Create a blog post for AdWords and later SEO rankings? Create a landing page for AdWords and later SEO rankings? Would love to here your thoughts and experiences on this issue... Best, Robin
Keyword Research | | soralsokal0 -
Price Comparison Website And Keywords
I run a price comparison website for a small niche at http://cdkeyprices.com I am targeting keywords for the specific products I am comparing the price/merchants on. On a typical page I would have a price column, product name, the merchant and a buy button. Buy button is affiliate linked to the merchant. The product name in the product column is the name from the actual website I am tracking. As such, my keyword was appearing sometimes up the 30 times. I've took it down some months ago but was wondering if this was a bad move. I was concerned Google would think I was stuffing the keyword. I've only just gotten into SEO the past few months so was not able to see any changes. Should i put the product column back up or would it be considered over optimization?
Keyword Research | | MrPenguin0 -
Accuracy of search volume for keyword planner v old keyword tool?
Hi there, I'm (logged into Google Adwords) and researching search volume for keywords but I'm seeing weird results. I know that the term "outage notification" had between 1000 and 5000 monthly global searches when I last looked (I know this because I add a search volume tag to the keywords I track ranking of via Moz). Yet, now when I check global search volume via keyword planner I'm seeing only 70 global searches per month (AND low competition which I know is not true). Is this perhaps because only the exact match is reported or is something else going on? Very frustrated as I have now lost faith in the keyword research process via Google keyword planner....not sure where to go from here!! Thanks very much
Keyword Research | | SnapComms1 -
Broad Vs. Exact Match
My question seems basic in nature but some recent keyword research has caused me to re-think broad vs. exact match. I was taught to focus on exact match for the short term and broad match for the long term prospects of a keyword. Today I was researching a niche of keyword phrases where the local search volume (broad) was, for example 33,000. The local search volume (exact) was only 500. What I know about broad vs. exact doesn't help me to determine if this keyword is worth going after. The keyword difficulty score by the way was 35% Yes, I do know that I will probably go after this keyword anyway but to refine my question, how do I get an idea of how "big" this keyword is? Is it more on the broad or more on the exact match of things? How do I determine the various derivatives of the phrase that occur under the broad match?
Keyword Research | | leaseman0 -
Keywords for multi service business?
New to this so bear with, I am a TV aerial, satellite, CCTV, Door entry, Access Control, Telephone repair engineer. I have one seperate page for each of the installations I carry out as well as the basic home, about, areas, faqs and so on. My question is do i have one key phrase for each of the services i cover or do i just relate all the keywords from that service into the keywords tag ie, META name=keywords content="Digial aerials Stockport,digital aerials Manchester,aerials Stockport,aerials Manchester,aerial repairs Stockport,aerial repairs Manchester,digital,aerial,tv,tv aerials Manchester,tv aerials Stockport,arials,arial,aerial installer,aerial installations,aeril installation,Stockport,Manchester ,"> That is what i have fro Tv aerial installation, Should i make landing pages for each phrase for each service or stick to one page? www.redvalecommunications.co.uk is the site if you want to take a look thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | redvalecomms0