You’ve created fantastic blog posts for your dental practice. You’ve done all the necessary keyword research, included relevant anchor text for links, and written compelling content. Now you just have to publish the blog and wait for it to rank.
Once you publish the page, however, you notice a problem: your page isn’t ranking like it should. This could be for a number of reasons — and keyword cannibalization could be one of them. Keyword cannibalization can be a serious issue.
What Are Keywords?
You want to improve your site’s ranking1 on search engines. Solid keywords are a key part of doing this.
Keywords are words or phrases that search engines look for to determine what pages should show up when people search for certain terms. Including them in the text of a webpage or blog post tells search engines that your page is relevant to a particular search. This, in turn, means your page will show up in the search results.
You’ll need to do keyword research to identify the right words to use for your area. This can be difficult and time-consuming on your own.
What Is Keyword Cannibalization?
Using the most popular keywords can help your pages rank. However, you can’t use the same keyword every time.
Say you use a specific keyword for two blog posts. Search engines will take note of that. Because of this, you’ll have two pages competing in the rankings — which can negatively affect how many visitors you get to your site.
Alternatively, say you use different keywords, but have pages that are too similar to one another. Search engines can’t always distinguish between the two and may try to rank them against each other.
When pages with similar keywords compete against each other, it’s known as keyword cannibalization. Since this can cause issues with attracting visitors to the right pages, you’ll need to make sure this problem’s addressed effectively.
How Do You Know if You Have a Keyword Cannibalization Problem?
It’s relatively simple to figure out if you have a problem. Pay close attention to your pages’ rankings. If you notice some aren’t ranking well, plug “(your domain name) + (keyword)” into a search engine, replacing the information in the parenthesis with your domain name and the keyword you’re looking for, respectively. This will show you what pages are ranking for what keywords. If you notice several pages competing against each other, you have a cannibalization issue.
Ways to Fix Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization is obviously a problem that you need to address. Thankfully, you have several options to fix the issue:
- Do new keyword research. Sometimes, pages cannibalize each other because they use the same exact keyword. You can address the problem by doing new keyword research for one or multiple pages. This way, you can use newer, more unique keywords that won’t hurt your ranking.
- Merge similar pages. You don’t necessarily need a lot of pages with similar content. If you notice you have a few pages that have very similar content, you might be able to merge the information, saving you the hassle of doing new keyword research.
- Delete unwanted pages. You might’ve created new pages on old topics to provide clients with updated information. Obviously, you don’t necessarily need the old pages anymore — but if they’re still on your site, they could show up in search results. Deleting old pages can help you avoid this issue.
- Change internal linking. Internal linking can help certain search engines determine which pages are important. If you want one page to rank higher, include anchor text and internal links that lead to it. This way, your page will have a better chance at ranking — even if there are other, similar pages.
Improve Your SEO Strategy
Keyword cannibalization can be a serious issue. It can have a huge impact on how important pages rank — but thankfully, you can fix the issue. Do additional keyword research, merge pages, and make sure you have proper internal linking to help your pages rank.
Learn more about SEO metrics to track for your dental practice on our blog. Schedule a demo today to see how we can help you intelligently shape the future of your practice.
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