How to Avoid Keyword Cannibalization in Your eCommerce

Keywords reign supreme when it involves attracting users and boosting your search engine position. Because of this, search engine optimization has grown to be a multi-million dollar sector, with a wide range of experts guiding how to climb the search engine results page (SERP) and take the coveted top spot. Several practical SEO guidance comes down to five excellent ideas: Make current and pertinent content by conducting market research to examine which keywords build a connection with your target audience.

This has led to the growth of the multi-million dollar search engine optimization (SEO) sector. A variety of experts now offer advice on how to move up the search engine results page, or SERP, and secure the top spot. Most useful SEO advice boils down to these five fantastic concepts: Conduct market research to identify the keywords that are relevant to your target audience and provide timely and relevant content.

What is keyword cannibalization?

When multiple blog articles or posts on your website can rank for the same Google search query, this is known as keyword cannibalization. Either because you customized them for the same keyphrase, or because the topics they cover are too similar. Posts and articles that are optimized for related search terms will outrank one another more quickly. For a given search query, Google displays not more than one or two results from a single domain. If that domain has a lot of authority, you may receive 3.

Google ranking

Cannibalizing your keywords puts you in a Google ranking competition with yourself. Assume you have two postings that are the same. In that scenario, Google is unable to determine which article should appear first for a given query. Furthermore, crucial elements like CTR and backlinks are spread out over multiple postings rather than just one. They will therefore most likely both rank lower. Because of this, each time you optimize a piece of writing for a focus keyword you’ve already used, SEO analysis will display a red bullet.

What’s the solution?

It’s simple to determine whether keyword cannibalism affects your website. All you have to do is search for your website using any particular keyword you think may return more than one result. Searching for “site:domain.com” “keyword” will provide you with a straightforward response to the query of whether or not you are experiencing keyword cannibalism. By entering the same term into Google (using a private browser or a local search results checker like https://valentin.app/), you can verify your findings.

Which of your pages appear in the search results, and where do they appear on the list? Naturally, it’s not an issue if two of your pages rank #1 and #2 for the same keyword. However, are your articles visible to you, for instance, in positions 7 and 8? Then it’s time to make some arrangements!

Keyword Cannibalization SEO

Cannibalizing keywords can have terrible effects on your SEO. Many victims of keyword cannibalization aren’t even aware that they have a problem. Without comprehending that one credible page will likely rank higher and convert better, they may even be pleased if one page is showing up in the fifth and sixth positions for their intended keyword.

The real-world ramifications are obvious. Less obvious consequences include lost site traffic, searches that land on the incorrect page, shifting SERP ranks, and eventually sales. The following are some of the most significant impacts that keyword cannibalization can have on your SEO:

Diluted Anchor Texts and Links

One better-performing page may have received 25 links instead of the 10 connections for one page and the 15 links for another that were obtained through outreach activities. Moreover, a thorough, comprehensive page has a higher chance of being linked to than a lighter, less thorough one. In a similar vein, visitors are being directed by your anchor text and internal links to several distinct pages rather than just one reliable source on the topic.

Relevant Pages Devalued

Google attempts to determine which page is the greatest fit if all of the keywords are the same; but, if the material is too similar, it may make an incorrect assumption. Let’s take an example where you have two pages that are competing for the same keyword. You can lose out on high-value, high-converting visitors if the page with a higher conversion rate ranks lower.

Decreased Conversion Rate

When you target the same term on multiple sites, readers will assume that your material is possibly fragmented. Additionally, it alerts Google to the possibility that your content may vary depending on the page. Any of your pages will inevitably convert more than the others. When potential leads arrive on less relevant pages, you lose them instead of attracting more people to that page thereby rendering it the most reputable page possible.

How to Avoid Keyword Cannibalization

While it is possible to identify and address keyword cannibalization, there are situations in which it is more cost-effective to avoid the problem than to solve it. Here are a few recommended techniques to reduce keyword cannibalization and boost your digital marketing approach.

Keyword Performance Tracking

You can determine which keywords are classified, which are too competitive, which are susceptible to cannibalization, and which keywords need a boost by regularly monitoring keyword data. Through your website analytics tool, you may monitor keyword ranks, performance, and other data directly. To prevent keyword cannibalism or address it when it occurs, keep an eye on this data and utilize it to adjust your keyword strategy.

Strategically Targeted Keywords

Optimizing your chosen keyword approach to eliminate competition and excessive overlap is one of the best ways to reduce keyword cannibalization. To put it briefly, this includes tailoring various sites to specifically target certain keywords and queries in searches.

Therefore, you may optimize each page for a related but distinct search query, such as “digital marketing strategy,” “marketing techniques,” “SEO for beginners,” and so on, rather than having five pages vying for the spot “SEO tips.” By doing this, you may provide unique material for a range of industry-related search queries while remaining on topic.

Focused Topics and Keywords

Keyword cannibalization occasionally occurs as a result of marketing teams concentrating more on keyword optimization than on producing content-centered subjects. Thus, incorporate topic focus into your marketing plan rather than devoting all of your resources to keyword research. Determine the subjects that pique the attention of your readers, then focus your efforts on fulfilling those needs. Prioritize the keywords. This will build reputations in the sector, draw in new readers, and strengthen audience loyalty.

Comprehensive Pages

Content teams choose to divide some topics into multiple sub-posts since they sometimes seem too complicated to handle in one blog post. This can be avoided by addressing all pertinent subtopics on a single, complete page rather than writing a separate blog article for each possible inquiry the audience might have.

Because you can target long-tail keywords, use pertinent headers, add several search queries on a single page, and avoid competing with yourself, this is better for SEO. This might turn into a pretty long blog article, so think about including a table of contents that readers can click on to quickly locate the portions they need.

Keyword Cannibalization in eCommerce

For your online store to be well-positioned on Google and other search engines, SEO work is crucial. E-commerce companies suffer from keyword cannibalization because it undermines all of their hard work and effort into SEO or shows that it wasn’t done right in the first place.

Internet search engines such as Google will become perplexed in their attempts to find your material if they discover that it is duplicated across multiple pages. Google will immediately penalize you by giving your pages less significance because it cannot stop and review every website.

The solution?

E-commerce sites often have many more pages than a typical website including landing pages, product, collection, category, and other pages. Consequently, they are especially susceptible to keyword cannibalization. Updating your catalog content and providing guidance to Google along with additional search engines are the keys to avoiding penalties in these scenarios.

Bottom Line

Keyword cannibalization for e-commerce sites is a crucial factor that leaves a great impact on audience reach, SEO, and overall business. Therefore, it is imperative to find ways to identify keyword cannibalization and work to eliminate it for an enhanced and improved customer experience and reach. If you also require support through management tools and software contact us at Pimberly for the best services in town.