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'm monitoring the organic keywords for a website, what do their organic keywords tell me?
Should the keywords they already rank well for make good topics for them to exploring in the future?
Keyword Research | | RonkeIR0 -
Same content but written for different audiences
Hi Mozers, The site that I work on has two pages with very similar content but written with a different sophistication of language. One page is written in a simple, easy-to-understand voice and the second is written at a high level for researchers. My question is: does the Google algorithm really understand the difference in sophistication and then pivot results such that the more sophisticated page shows up for researchers and the simplistic page shows up for non-researchers (thereby eliminating or greatly reducing competition between these two pages)? Thank you!
Keyword Research | | yaelslater0 -
Where to use which keywords...
After doing keyword research and coming up with a list of keywords/phrases that I'd like to optimise a specific page for (an additional page to an existing website), I get confused about WHERE to use which keywords. For example, choosing between two keywords like home insurance and specialist home insurance. Let's say home insurance is more searched than the other, and but is more difficult to rank for, and specialist home insurance is less searched but easier to rank for. Firstly, which one should I use as my "main keyword" and secondly, what benefit does the other keyword(s) then have on the rest of the page, and were do I use them? I hope this makes sense. Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Keyword Research | | Jana_Joubert1 -
Local Keywords
Hello everyone. Still loving MOZ. Question: When I research a keyword phrase such as Entertainers it is returning a local search of 15,972. I want to target three specific cities in my area ( Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Akron). When I research the phrase Cleveland Entertainers I'm getting a local search result of 0. Should I just assume that the search is still large enough to use? Should I target Cleveland Entertainers still with feedback of 0? Also is it a good idea to target the word entertainers with three separate pages to three separate cities? I'm planning on making three separate blogs with new content on each. This will not be duplicate content.
Keyword Research | | Jasonalanmagic0 -
Local keywords still relevant?
Now with Google localizing search increasingly personalizing queriesquery results, is it still necessary to add geo-specific modifiers to keywords? [reworded for clarity]
Keyword Research | | SSFCU0 -
Keyword competitiveness/research
I'm familiar with ranking factors and can get a pretty good idea of whether going for a keyword is realistic by looking at the seomoz keyword difficulty tool. As well as the % score it has a lot of useful information. There was an seomoz article a while ago that detailed how 100 or so experts determine a keyword's competitiveness. Does anybody have the link? Or just as good, any useful guides to interpreting the data to gauge how possible it is to compete? Thanks
Keyword Research | | PTMPercy0 -
Keyword cannibalization in ecommerce sites
I'm assuming this is a common problem in ecommerce sites. Lets say we have a "sleeping bags" which has all types of sleeping bags on it. Then build a brand page "The North Face" with a subpage for The North Face sleeping bags. Is it possible to target the sleeping bags page for "sleeping bags" while targeting the branded sleeping bag page for "The North Face sleeping bag"? how would you suggest doing this while avoiding keyword cannibalization?
Keyword Research | | Hakkasan0 -
Two spaces between keywords?
For seo purposes Looking to register a new double (keyword based) domain were popular domains are not available. Keyword difficulty rated for exact keyword is 49% For example, www.(name1)(name2).com (is not available) www.(name1)-(name2).com (is not available) (single space between keywords) What is the next best alternative? www.(name1)--(name2).com (Double space between keywords) www.(name2)(name1).com (reverse keywords with no spaces) www.(name1)s(name2)s.com (adding the letter s to the end of both keywords) or is there a better alternative)
Keyword Research | | peterds0