Repeatedly target a rolling list of kws..or is that cannibalization? Biggest Confusion in SEO Ive found
-
Also suggesting a WBF topic. Ive read and researched with no luck here... would love a Moz staff reply too!
Is it better to blog repeatedly on the same topic (writing multiple blogs around the topic of "content marketing" for example in hopes Google sees you as an authority on the topic over time) OR is this keyword cannibalization? Is it better to have one powerful and comprehensive page on a topic if it makes sense.
Thanks!
-
Ricky,
It's impossible to get around using the same and/or similar phrases in multiple pieces of content on a website. As long as your writing the content your audience craves, this should be of little concern.
To become an authority on/in a given topic or area, you will need to create a deep collection of similar but varied content.
In a nutshell, your worries about cannibalization in this sense, are unfounded.
RS
-
Hi Ronell, definitely appreciate the insights but still not sure I have an answer!
My question is really on the most technical side of this issue as I mentioned above targeting the SAME keyword and not different variations of a keyword. I've heard two completely opposite schools of thought with one side insisting that creating blog posts (for example) regularly on a specific topic geared toward the same exact keyword phrase target can actually help SEO efforts. I assume that theory goes something like this: Google wants to see that you're an expert on the specific topic you're hoping to rank for, so writing about the exact topic (with essentially the same keyword target) several times can actually help establish the correlation that you may be an expert on the given topic/keyword phrase. On the other hand, I've always viewed this as cannibalization. If you have something to write about "link building" for example, it's better to have all of that content in one powerful, comprehensive page vs creating 3-4 posts per year about "link building" in general. Now, I understand that if you want to write about a specific aspect of link building, like "link building for local businesses" you may want a different page, but I'm referring to having several blogs targeting the exact same keyword phrase for SEO.
Thanks all! I actually heard back from Rand and he mentioned they may be adding this as a WBF topic so hoping we get some clarity soon.
Ricky
-
Hi Ricky,
I'm going to break your question up:
1 - First, I'd like to see a brand creating and sharing content about/around and area they can own in the mind of prospects and customers. This means the brand has a staff that contains experts on the topic, and who can write with passion, depth and empathy for the audience. If you have this mindset and these people in place, you need not worry about writing too much about a given topic. For example, a plumbing site might want to rank for "Tulsa plumbers," "water leaks Tulsa" "emergency plumbers Tulsa" and "24 hour plumbers Tulsa." The competition will likely be fierce. But that same brand could focus on building the brand through creating recognizable personalities and creating educational content, such as videos. This way the content being shared gains the attention from a wide swath of prospects, and the brand personality - now associated with that shared information - is top of mind when an emergency repair occurs. Try this: (a) Pull your team together and brainstorm educational content ideas, with the idea of helping one person: Who is she? What does she desire in the way of worthwhile information? What information is you brand uniquely qualified to provide? Where should it be shared? Who can help you amplify it? After you build out four or five of these personas, you should have a long list of content ideas.
2 - At the page-level on your website, you don't want multiple pages competing for the same keywords. For example, that same plumber wouldn't want two main pages competing for "Tulsa Plumbers." However, it's unlikely you'll be able to avoid including some of the same keywords on other pages. An approach that I follow, and that is summed up here, is to have main pages be more generic - Tulsa Plumbers - and use subcategory pages be more specific, Tulsa Plumbers Emergency Repair.
Thanks for the question, Ricky. Please let me know if this helps.
-
Yes, both of those pages earned a position on page one. If you launch another version of the free CAD software or free CAD templates, vector files, etc. then you might earn three positions on the first page. I have two, three and four positions on the first page for lots of small money terms.
-
Hey Guys,
I understand where you're coming from in terms of competitive analysis and figuring out whether you'd be hard-pressed to have multiple pages ranking for more competitive terms. I also understand that there are certain aspects of a topic that may justify different pages (for example, water filters, home water filters and under sink filters may require different page urls while water filters vs. water filtration may not) but I'm more referring to the algorithmic aspect of this.
In general, does Google LIKE to see that you're creating multiple pieces of content on a topic to deem you an "expert", or is there no benefit to doing so from that standpoint? I've seen similar terms that I believe require different pages/urls competing against each other and hurting the top ranking page in the SERPS.
For example, I had a client who had sold CAD software. Their home page was optimized around that term and ranking middle of page one. They had ANOTHER page that was for a free CAD software (stripped down version) that initially didn't rank for the "CAD software" term. At some point, this free CAD page starting creeping up into the top 25 on Google, and as it did we saw a direct correlation with a drop off for our home page. Instead of having one page ranking at #4, we now had TWO pages ranking #10 and #11.
Make sense?
-
Spot on as always Egol - and the biggest takeaway here...
Don't waste your time with the big comprehensive page if you can't beat the quality of the content that already exists.
Everyone could learn a lot just from remembering this.
-Andy
-
I would not attack "content marketing" with repeated posts. It is a difficult topic to rank for and the sites that you will be competing against are very strong. There are tons of sites competing.
I would not attack "content marketing" with a big comprehensive page but for other less competitive subjects I would attack with a big comprehensive page if I can beat the other content that is already out there. Don't waste your time with the big comprehensive page if you can't beat the quality of the content that already exists.
.... Now... about KW cannibalization....
Saturating a market niche with content works well in tiny niches with naive competitors. You can have three pages from one domain on the first page of the SERPs - each presenting different content to read or different products for sale. Saturating a market niche doesn't work well if multiple big brands are your competitors. It's too hard to produce two or three pages on the same topic that are good enough to earn the first page of the SERPs. (Lots of people think that KW cannibalization is bad because you are "eating your own"... but in my view you are "eating your competitors" with same-keyword content. :|) <-- that pipe is a bone in the nose. Kick them out of profitable SERPs by loading the top three positions with your own pages.
So, making the decision to produce multiple pages of content for the same keyword or keyword niche should not be guided by generic advice. You must consider the niche, the strength of sites in the niche, the amount of content already out there in that niche, your ability to compete with the quality of the content already in the niche. Being able to make money from the traffic that you do get is the crux move that determines profitability and the only reason to do this other than vanity or proselytization. The people giving generic advice about this topic (or just about any topic) are blathering.
(My post above discusses keyword cannibalization on a single domain that you control. See Rand's Whiteboard Friday from last week and on August 28. He does not mention "keyword cannibalization" in those videos (putting up multiple pages about the same topic), but, in my view, it is doing it through the use of multiple domains that other people control. Often they are very strong or very popular domains that earn your content visibility or authority.)
Other recommended activities for cannibals between early May and late October.
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
-
International SEO
Hi all, The company that I work for is planning to target some french (and some other foreign) keywords. The thing is, in our industry, you can't just hire someone to translate the content/pages. The pages have to be translated by an accredited translator. Here's the thing, it costs a LOT of money just to translate a few thousand words. So, the CEO decided to translate a few of our 'core' pages and SEO them to see if it brings results. My questions are, would it be possible from a technical point of view to simply translate a few pages? Would that cause a problem for the search engine crawlers? Would those pages be 'seen' as duplicates? Thanks in advance guys!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdwardDennis0 -
Wordpress Blogs and SEO
So far we have been creating separate blogs on wordpress.com for our sites, and writing there. Today I was told that there was better SEO hosting the blog on the actual domain. i.e. www.widgets.com/blog instead of widget.wordpress.com Is this true? Oddly I have had my WP beat my own URL on one account. So I am not sure if this is valid. Can someone tell me pros and cons of both? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | greenhornet770 -
Site structure from an SEO standpoint
I am fortunate enough to be working with a client who is still building their website. From a site structure standpoint, what can I look for with my SEO hat as they build their wire frames and storyboard their site? I want to make sure I don't miss any components that might be helpful short and long term
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Mobile SEO
Hi there, My website when searching via mobile is now showing the mobile version of the site in SERPs, well for quite sometime now to be honest, anyway the ranking in mobile are no different to what they are on desktop, is there actually anything I can do to influence my mobile SERPs? 9 times out of 10 it's desktop websites that are ranking about me in mobile search. Any help would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
# element above Menu - Is there any SEO Value to it
Is there any Value to having the H1 element above the MENU in a Typical Application ? My intention is to tell the "Bot" that the H1 element is more important than the Menu Items . Are there any examples of such sites . The closest that I have seen is (NOT MY SITES) http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/ and http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/cheap-flights/from-dallas-texas/1531/?airport_code=dfw&depsub=1&c2calert=0&deal_alert=0&from_hp=true Here they (second link) they have H1 above the Bread Crumb ( they dont have any menu though).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chaits0 -
SEO consultant/expert
I am looking to hire an SEO expert that can not only make suggestions/perform audit, but also execute changes. Of course lots of companies are available, but I am ideally looking for an individual with a nice track record. No offense to SEO firms, but I am not interested in paying for overhead, etc. Curious to know if others have gone this route and what the experience has been like. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MNKid150 -
Competitor using shady SEO tactics but still ranks at the top in Organic listings
A competitor of my client has been ranking consistently in the top 2 spots in the organic listings on Google for years. They have the advantage of keywords in the URL but no matter what we do we just can't bump them out of the top position. Recently we discovered that they have 7 or so .org sites set up claiming to be run by volunteers and their opinions are un-biased that "highly recommend" products from the main site's company. Is this against Google's policies? I've submitted a spam report to Google but of course haven't heard anything back from them. Our AdWords rep told us that the policy team doesn't respond directly to claims because of privacy reasons? Anyone know any other way to report things like this to Google? We got dropped from the rankings for 3 months due to malicious code (spammy links) injected into all the pages on our site but these people sit steadily at the top. I don't get it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pidot0 -
Targeting combination of keywords
Hi, On our website Vliegtickets.nl we are now targeting one combination of keywords " flights + destination". We are working on a new website and we are rewriting texts for the launch. Our idea is to target again on the combination " flights + destination", but also target other combinations. Our intention is to have a first introduction text targeted on " flights + destination" and have lower parts of texts (descriptions) targeted on the long tail, with use of keywords like flight / fly to / cheap tickets to etc. Our page will be divided like this: 1. introduction text max 150 words (h1 + h2) targeted on " flights + destination"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vliegticketsnl
2. box 2 Cityguide snippets / content in context of destination - targeted on city name
3. box 3. Question: target on new generic keywords + combination of destination What is your point of view on box 3? Is it the right way to target a broader range of keywords? Should we use these long tail keywords (fly to / flights / cheap flights...) also in meta title / meta description / strong kwds, etc? Or will it be sufficient if we target on one combination and use those synonyms in a lower density? Or is it best to keep the focus on one main combination and other pages on other keyword combinations? Best regards, Vliegtickets.nl0