Search Concepts

Keyword optimization is at the heart of search engine optimization, and its importance is quite often down played and under realized. Keyword cannibalization can be a major problem, and addressing it is of serious importance. Keyword cannibalization is also commonly referred to as “keyword blurring.”

Most websites revolve around a theme or series of themes. Industry veterans have coined a slew of witty terminologies to compare the keywords associated to these themes including but not limited to keyword themes, keyword buckets, keyword silos and more. For discussions of this article, let’s call the keyword to content relationship “keyword themes.”

Websites frequently mix themes and subject matter from page to page. While this might make sense from a user-interaction perspective it can also be very counter-intuitive from a search engines perspective. Keywords should be viewed as having three (3) parts, which include 1) core word, 2) keyword phrase, and 3) extended keyword phrase.

Core words will be commonly repeated throughout many pages on a website. This is one of the primary reasons why ranking for a core word, or one-word phrase is difficult or even impossible to do with on-page optimization alone. Example core words include “book,” “website,” “TV,” “music,” etc.

Keyword phrases are also commonly repeated throughout multiple pages on a website, but this is generally where the blurring occurs. Keyword phrase examples include “harry potter book,” “website design,” “JVC TV,” and “rock music.”

Extended keyword phrases are less commonly repeated through multiple pages on a website, and should in many scenarios be limited to only one page of a website. Extended keyword phrase examples include “harry potter and the goblet of fire,” “small business website design,” “JVC 32” plasma TV,” and “rolling stones paint it black.”

Now that we’ve established the basics of the (3) types of keywords let’s get into the best practices!

On-Page Keyword Usage Best Practices

A typical page should focus optimization techniques on 3-5 keyword phrases, and at least 5-10 extended keyword phrases. It is important to see that extended keyword phrases are generally used only on one page. You want to be cautious about how you mix up keyword phrases and extended keyword phrases.

Let’s assume we’re dealing with a “music search engine” website. An artist page might be called “Rolling Stones Music” and feature 20 top Rolling Stones songs, each having their own page which includes lyrics to the song, ring tones, and an option to buy the song via iTunes. Keywords should not blur from page to page.

Keywords for the artist page might include:

1)    Rolling Stones Music
2)    Rolling Stones Songs
3)    Rolling Stones Website

Extended keyword phrases might include:

1)    Classic Rolling Stones Music
2)    Top Rolling Stones Songs
3)    70’s Rolling Stones Songs
4)    80’s Rolling Stones Songs

Keep in mind that on this page we are also linking to 20 songs pages from the artist page; songs like Paint it Black, Wild Horses, Shatter, and Beast of Burden.
The artist page will naturally have some of these song-related keywords within internal links which point to the songs pages. It’s important not to intentionally target these song keywords in general SEO-target areas like the page Title, Meta Description, H1 tags, and on-page content.

The song pages by themselves are the most relevant landing pages for keywords like “Rolling Stones Paint it Black,” not the artist page. Targeting songs keywords on the artist page and the song page creates keyword blurring. By focusing on keywords, and being cautious not to blur keyword phrases and extended keyword phrases there is a good change that Google will reward the artist page with a ranking for songs keywords as well, thereby creating a double ranking. Intentional keyword blurring will only confuse the search engines, which reduces the effectiveness of both pages.

Focus should also be paid to internal linking. Links on a page carry significant weight in the rankings process. Make sure the links on your website link to your pages with keyword phrases and extended keyword phrases, and be sure not to link to a page using keyword phrases you are targeting on another page. This will also cause confusion to the search engines. As an example, linking to the “Rolling Stones Paint it Black” page should not only use the words ‘Rolling Stones” or a primary keyword phrase being targeted on the Artist page like “Rolling Stones song.”

Content Indexing Best Practices

In addition to being cautious not to blur keywords it is also important not overly dilute your keyword targets. Websites with heavy content and user-generated content in particular need to be especially cognoscente of keyword dilution. As an example, many music search engine songs pages feature user-comments.
If the Rolling Stones Paint it Black page features user-generated comments then a strategy may need to be considered to exclude portions of the comments.
Let’s assume the song page has 31 comments. Chances are that most of these comments will not use the desired keywords, which may significantly reduce keyword density.
The use of iframes is an excellent way to display desired content without incurring keyword dilution.

My recommendation here is to display the first 10 comments only, and then display the following comments within an iframe. It is important to note that these iframes should be generated with the NOINDEX META tag so they are not indexed in the SERPs. Often, a website will have redundant content themes, and might carry the same keyword phrases and extended keyword phrases from page to page. A review process will help uncover potential theme conflicts. Using a websites sitemap or local/server files is the best way to determine if there is theme repetition occurring.

Another option is to view Google’s indexed pages by performing the site: operation search, i.e. site:yoursite.com. This will display all of the pages indexed by Google for the searched URL. If there are multiple pages targeting the same theme being indexed you may want to consider consolidating these pages down to one page. Multiple pages using a duplicative theme will confuse search engines, and the 2 or more pages sharing the duplicate theme may not rank properly, or the wrong page might rank in place of the more desirable page.

If consolidation is possible from a website architecture perspective, then there is really only one way to properly make your intentions known to the search engines. You will need to 301 redirect the page or pages with the duplicate themes to primary page you want ranked. Performing a 301 redirect can be done in a variety of ways depending on your server operating system. The web is full of helpful guides for properly 301 redirecting an internal page to another internal page.

Redirecting these pages may significantly improve the ranking of the primary page. Not only will you clean up and correct your keyword usage strategy, but the internal pages being redirected may have direct inbound links (i.e. pages on other websites might link directly to them). Now, the primary page will benefit from its direct inbound links, and the direct inbound links from the pages being redirected. The 301 redirect is the essential redirect type, as Google in particular will pass all link popularity credit from the pages being redirect to the primary page. As a side note, this strategy works exceptionally well if you own multiple websites, assuming these sites each have their own unique inbound links.

Off-Page Keyword Best Practices

Off-page anchor text is still one of the biggest components considered by ranking algorithms. A savvy SEO should ensure to the best of his/her ability that inbound links point to the appropriate pages, and use anchor text found within the on-page portions of the page. No webmaster or SEO can fully control inbound link anchor text, but an avid eye should be kept on the backlink portfolio – I suggest tools like LinkDiagnosis.com or Backlinkwatch.com.

If you are engaging in link building activities you should also be aware of standard strategies used to keep your backlink portfolio looking natural. As an example, most websites have 50-80% of their backlinks using some form of branded keywords. Seventy-five (75%) percent or more of most website’s have backlinks linking to their home page. While slightly off-topic, it is also very important to note that overusing specific keyword phrases in a link building strategy will generally have an opposite effect. Overusing the same keywords will essentially throw up a red flag to search engines. The usage rate of keywords in inbound links is all based on your websites existing link popularity portfolio, historical link growth rate, and website age.

Conclusion

Keyword cannibalization is frequent, and is often the underlying problem in a well designed SEO strategy. Utilizing proper keyword optimization strategies on-page and off-page will neutralize blurring, and improve rankings. A website’s optimization should be revisited every 90-180 days, and the instructions listed above make up some of the most basic rules to follow. Every website and SEO strategy is different, but if you haven’t given much thought to keyword cannibalization before, not might be a good time to revisit your approach. Good luck!