Many businesses today use the internet to spread the word about their brand. Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a crucial role in boosting search engine results pages (SERPs) visibility. While highly effective, it’s not without its faults. One of the most common SEO issues is keyword cannibalization.
Keyword cannibalization refers to the running of multiple different pages that target the same keyword. While this might be an excellent strategy for search engine optimization (SEO), it can lead to losing focus on your target audience. It also can lead to significant financial losses if alleged to be violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
In this article, we’ll shed some light on keyword cannibalization issues. Read on below to learn more.
Why Keyword Cannibalization Happens
To gain the most possible visitors, many companies create separate sites for each product or service that they offer. While this strategy can be highly effective, it also increases the risk of keyword cannibalization, as many companies will create multiple products competing for the same keyword.
Keyword Cannibalization and Its Impact on SEO
When a company optimizes its website for highly competitive keywords and is frequently used, it’s much more difficult to rank as highly as its competitors. For example, if a company uses the same keyword on multiple pages, this can cause its website to be positioned lower in Google’s search results. This can harm the amount of traffic that the website receives, directly impacting profits.
When a company uses the same keyword on multiple pages of a website, it can also put its website at risk of being penalized by Google. Google has clearly outlined that using the same keyword across multiple pages violates its webmaster guidelines. If a company violates these guidelines, it puts its website at a higher risk of being penalized by Google. This can result in the website being de-indexed by Google and entirely removed from its search results. In addition to hurting the company’s profits, this can also have broader negative implications on the rest of the business.
A loss of traffic to a website can also hurt the company’s online presence. When this is combined with a loss of visibility in Google’s search results, it can damage the company’s reputation. If a company is penalized by Google, it may also indicate that the company is taking shortcuts to rank highly and making potential clients question its credibility.
When a website is de-indexed by Google, it will no longer appear in the search results, and the company will no longer gain new clients and may even lose existing clients due to a loss of visibility.
How Can Keyword Cannibalization Be Prevented?
The best way to avoid keyword cannibalization is to create multiple, individual pages for each of your services or products. Creating separate pages for each service or product will help you avoid any negative consequences and allow you to tap into the traffic searching for your business.
You should also ensure that you don’t use the same keyword on multiple website pages. While you must optimize the content of each page for the target keywords, you should ensure that you aren’t using the same keyword multiple times on the same page. You should also ensure that the content of each page is entirely different. This is the best way to ensure that your website is well-optimized and safe from any SEO penalties.
Conclusion
Google uses algorithm updates frequently, so you must keep up with the times. You want to make sure that you are fulfilling the needs of your target audience by creating individual, informative sites that are relevant to their needs. Allowing Google to detect your page as an appropriate source for the keyword will ensure that you won’t lose valuable visitors.
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