Speaker 1: 0:52

Hi, ed Dawson here, and, as I'm a bit busy at the moment and need a break, welcome to another one of my best of SEO is not that hard podcasts. These are the episodes from the back catalog that I think have the greatest hits and ones that are still relevant and provide great value for you. So, without further ado, let's get into the episode. Hello and welcome to. Seo is not that hard. I'm your host, ed Dawson, the founder of KeywordsPeopleUsecom, the place to find and organise the questions people ask online. I'm an SEO developer, affiliate marketer and entrepreneur. I've been building and monetising websites for over 20 years and I've bought and sold a few along the way. I'm here to share with you the SEO knowledge, hints and tips I've built up over the years.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Hello and welcome back to SVO's. Not that Hard. It's me, your host, ed Dawson, as usual, and today I'm going to be talking about topic cannibalization and how it relates to keyword cannibalization. So this is all inspired by a chat I was having just a few days ago with one of the friends of the show, mark, and he's also a customer of Keywords People Use. He uses Keywords People Use on his site and with his clients. Now I was giving him a run-through of how our new Google Search Console integration works and part of the thing we can do in this is we can look at keyword cannibalization and we were talking through this, so can look at keyword cannibalization and we were talking through this. So I'm going to use an example from one of my sites rather than his, and back in the day, obviously, when I had broadband up to the UK before we sold it, our main keyword was broadband and we targeted lots of things then around broadband. So the topic of the site was broadband and therefore we used that keyword broadband on every single page. I can't think of a single page that didn't mention the word broadband somewhere upon it. So if we were then looking at that keyword specifically, that very sort of head term keyword. Then, yeah, keyword level, it was technically being cannibalized all over the site. Okay, now Mark's question was well, how do we solve this problem? Surely are we not cannibalizing this keyword by using it on multiple pages.

Speaker 2: 3:14

Now, this is where you know Google's not that dumb, okay, it uses its common sense. You know. You think about any site on a particular topic. It's going to mention that topic almost on every page and the keywords around that topic are going to be repeated across many pages. Okay, that topic are going to be repeated across many pages. Okay, so keyword cannibalization doesn't mean there's an issue if you use the same words or keywords on multiple pages. Okay, the shorter those head terms are, okay. So broadband would be used on every page on that site. Broadband speed test, one of the main functions on that site. It's going to be mentioned a lot on a whole number of pages across the site because we'll refer to broadband speed test tool in lots of places.

Speaker 2: 4:07

Okay, it's not just the reference on a page that causes the cannibalization. What causes the cannibalization is the topic of the page, okay. So if we have two pages on exactly the same topic, that's when we're going to get a cannibalization issue. So this is when we're talking about subtopics. Obviously, because every page on, say, broadbandcouk is about broadband in one way or another. Pretty much so your main topic will be repeated across many pages as you break your topic down into your pillars. So on broadbandcouk we had, for example, subtopics like home broadband and mobile broadband. Then those mobile broadband is going to be mentioned probably on every single page in its subtopic area and that pillar. So any sub page off mobile broadband is going to also be a subtopic of mobile broadband. So it's going to mention that mobile broadband theme topic. So you you're going to create these pillars of topics within your site. Now, done right, every single page in a subtopic will be unique in what it is talking about, even if it spreads out further below.

Speaker 2: 5:25

So, for example, on home broadband, we had pages where it was home broadband for gamers. So this is where we had a page. It was home broadband for gamers. So this is where we had a page that was specifically about the kind of things a gamer would need to think about when it came to mobile broadband. We wouldn't talk about gaming for home broadband users on any other page, just on that page. Then we had another page, which was home broadband for students. This is the kind of things that students would be particularly interested in. So students, for example, in the UK, generally only live in a property for nine months because that's how long their year end is before they go home for the summer. So they're going to be very wary about signing up for long-term deals. So they will look for specific deals aimed at students and they would also have interest maybe in larger download allowances, faster speeds, because they're going to be sharing it amongst lots of you know data hungry power users, rather than just being like a family at home where you're going to get less use compared to having a whole load of students all in at the same time. Then, going back to the gamers one, obviously gamers are going to be interested in high speeds, low latency, all those kind of things that are very specific, and some broadband providers are better than others for gamers and somehow, special deals. So you talk about all those on that page.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Okay, so you can see how, although they're both about home broadband and our sub topic pages of the home broadband page that we had, they're not cannibalizing each other. So if people are just searching for home broadband, google's gonna know that. Aha, we've got the topic pillar here okay, especially as those sub pages below it will link back to their page above them with the term home broadband. If you set your architectural right, you will link back to them using that term, but the topic above them and that page above will link down to the pages below it with their subtopics, so it would link down Home Broadband for Gamers and Home Broadband for Students, or just Broadband for Students, broadband for Gamers. You get your linking right like that. Then in future, if you're coming along again, you won't write another page about Home Broadband for Gamers, another page about home broadband for gamers.

Speaker 2: 7:38

Okay, if the topic needs breaking out into other chunks, you create a page under home broadband for gamers that talks about the specific thing that you're talking about. It might be you know the right kind of um broadband for gamers who are using, say, you know, games that don't require low latency, might be more strategy game players, the kind of things they're going to be more interested in. You might break it up. You might even do pages about individual games, okay, and how you can relate that to the topic of broadband. Okay, each one of them will all link back up broadband for gamers to the gamers page and likewise you make sure that you don't repeat the intent of the page that you're breaking up here. Basically, and within that you know it might just be if you've got extra content to add, you just add it to that page.

Speaker 2: 8:22

You might say, actually I've got some new gaming content. It doesn't deserve its own page, the intent isn't right for its own page. So therefore I'm just going to update the content on the existing page. That's a publicly valid thing to do and often the best thing to do. I'm just going to update the content on the existing page. That's a completely valid thing to do and often the best thing to do.

Speaker 2: 8:36

Okay, so here you see. You've got to think about it in terms of not cannibalizing your topics. Now you might get some keywords that do go across the two. Don't sweat it too much, especially if they're very low volume keywords, keywords that aren't going to drive a lot of traffic and it's impossible to always keep them completely siloed. But if you do see any kind of overlock like that, it's always, if you can do a little cheeky link across so that if you're referencing that, actually if you want the full details on you know the best broadbunker gamers and you've talked about games on your student page and make sure you link to the page that you think is the um the best one for the intent of this topic.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Okay, so what do you do if you find that you have got a canonization issue? Okay, so we've talked about now how to organize in a way if you start from scratch. But what happens if you actually have an issue? Well, we can sort this out. So, first of all, you need to identify where you have got cannibalization issues, and we can do that in our google search integration. So if you register your site with us, connect your google search console. We can then download all the pages and all the queries. We can then see for individual queries. You know what pages are ranking on those queries and we can find, help you identify which ones where there's a cannibalization issue.

Speaker 2: 9:51

Now, sometimes that issue is really small. All it means is you know, effectively, we've got the hierarchy right, we've got the page, we've got the sort of pillar pages and the subtopic pages underneath, and so in those cases, you just make sure you've got the sort of pillar pages and the subtopic pages underneath, and so in those cases, you just make sure you've got a link from each page back with the right keywords and you know that can sort of let it show out and make sure that you know that the main page is getting its context right as far as because it's concerned in terms of those links on the hierarchy, and the subtopic page is then going to be the one that ranks for the sub queries. But if you're looking for a sort of rank ahead terms, then you're going to get your pages higher the hierarchy. You're going to get that. You get that right. So this helps you identify that but also help you find pages where you've got lots of, you know, more than one page ranking with the same intent across a query and you know neither one's performing well in this case. This is where you've got a clear, obvious case where you want you to do is consolidate your content.

Speaker 2: 10:51

Now, in most cases this will be by finding the page that is ranking the best so far for the term and then making sure that you consolidate all the content from the other pages that are ranking for that term into that one page.

Speaker 2: 11:04

So it's expanding the content on that page and then 301, redirecting all those pages that were cannibalizing into the sort of the page even you've now decided is a new sort of the complete guide to whatever is.

Speaker 2: 11:18

Those keywords are that you're targeting. Okay, sometimes, like you might decide actually going to create a brand new page and just 30 on redirect all those cannibalizing pages into the new page and make sure that your content on that new page covers everything that those three pages did. Occasionally you might actually decide a little bit of cannibalization is okay because in general google, where there's overlap, it can kind of work out which page it needs to do and by looking at how any pages that appear to be cannibalizing perform, if you're covering all the keywords and ranking well, say you've got all you know number one keyword rankings across all those keywords or very high rankings across all those keywords across those two pages, you're getting all the traffic you want. That's absolutely fine. Sometimes you'll make that call, but often cases it's a case of making sure your internal linking is right where you've got subtopic pages which have got a slight bit of cannibalization, and if you've got a lot of cannibalization across a number of pages to consolidate into a single page.

Speaker 2: 12:17

So I hope you found that useful. If you've got any questions or any comments on this, please do not hesitate to get in touch. All the ways to contact me are in the end of the podcast and in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 12:27

So yeah, look forward to seeing you next time before I go, I just wanted to let you know that if you'd like a personal demo of our tools at keywords people use that you can book a free, no obligation one-on-one video call with me where I show you how we can help you level up your content by finding and answering the questions your audience actually have. You can also ask me any SEO questions you have. You just need to go to keywordspeopleusecom slash demo where you can pick a time and date that suits you for us to catch up Once again. That's keywordspeopleusecom slash demo and you can also find that link in the show notes of today's episode. Hope to chat with you soon. Thanks for being a listener. I really appreciate it. Please subscribe and share. It really helps.

Speaker 1: 13:10

Seo is not that hard. It's brought to you by keywordspeopleusecom, the place to find and organize the questions people ask online. See why thousands of people use us every day. Try it today for free at keywordspeopleusecom To get an instant hit of more SEO tips tips. Then find the link to download a free copy of my 101 quick seo tips in the show notes of today's episode. If you want to get in touch, have any questions, I'd love to hear from you. I'm at channel 5. On twitter you can email me at podcast at keywords people usecom. Bye for now and see you in the next episode of seo. Is not that hard?