Derek Flint’s Post

How to find content consolidation opportunities/fix content cannibalization (a more-than COMPLETE guide) 🔗 [+ a free step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots in the comments] 1️⃣ Identifying different webpages that are generating impressions/appearing on the SERP for the same query You can do this by using GSC or a third-party tool like Ahrefs. 👉 In GSC, you might notice that your newest piece of content started seeing a big lift in impressions, while another post unexpectedly lost impressions. If the overall website doesn't see a boost in impressions when the new post begins doing well, it's a sign that you should check for drops elsewhere. You can look for consolidation opportunities in bulk by sorting GSC data. Look for queries that meet the following criteria: ✅ Are not brand queries ✅ Have a relatively high number of impressions ✅ Hold an average position between 20 and 50 ✅ Have a CTR below 1% Review the list of queries you're left with to see if any of them are generating impressions across more than 1 URL. 👉 In Ahrefs, you can go to your keyword report page and toggle the "Multiple URLs only" button. This will show you keywords assigned to multiple URLs (more details about this in the free resource). 2️⃣ Perform a SERP & competitor analysis Look up the query causing the cannibalization problem on Google. Evaluate the intent and context of each piece that's performing well. This involves looking at the headers, the title tags, and the content of the top-ranking pieces. See the resource in the comments for detailed instructions. 3️⃣ Review the URLs cannibalizing for the target query Read through the content from each URL that generates impressions for the same query. Identify the unique parts of each post that can be used to satisfy the intent you identified in your research in step 1. 👉 Purely hypothetical example: Perhaps your company created 4 blog posts about using marketing automation for email campaigns. Post 1 = what email automation is Post 2 = 5 types of email automations Post 3 = best practices/common mistakes when using email automation Post 4 = email automation tools After you look at the intent for your target query, you notice that page 1 is only large guides that include all of the above topics. You’ll need to combine all 4 of those posts with the most relevant information from each that help you match the intent. 4️⃣ Combine and create your new and improved Frankenstein post Next is the work of bringing all that content together in a smooth, well-written article. You’ll also need to create any other sections required to create a thorough piece. 4. Implement 301 redirects (2 options) One, upload and publish your new content to the best-performing existing URL for that target query. Redirect the rest of the cannibalizing URLs to this updated URL. Two, upload and publish your new content to a new URL. 301 redirect all the cannibalizing URLs to this new URL. 5. Wait for the results 🚀