Does having multiple similar pages cause problems for SEO? Can you write about the same topic many times and still get all those pages ranking? It can seem like a real conundrum, but there are solutions. In this post, we’ll consider the issues and options for getting multiple posts about the same topic to rank.
Can you cover the same topic twice in your blog? The simple answer is ‘yes’, you definitely can. But it’s worth thinking about whether that’s something you really want to do. It’s much easier to get your content ranking when you stick to one page per topic. If you really need to have multiple posts covering the same topic, it is possible to rank them all. You just need to make some careful adjustments.
What can go wrong with your SEO?
When creating multiple similar pages, there are a couple of issues that can arise: duplicate content, and keyword cannibalization.
When you have a lot of content similarity across multiple pages, search engines don’t know which one they should show in the search results. As a result, all of those pages can end up ranking lower than they otherwise would. This is known as a duplicate content problem.
Meanwhile, keyword cannibalization can occur even if the content on your pages is very different. If both posts target the same keyword, you can end up competing with yourself in the search results. Again, Google and other search engines won’t know which page to rank higher. Both pages can suffer as a result.
Can you avoid creating similar content?
Of course, the best way to avoid duplicate content and keyword cannibalization issues is not to create them in first place! It’s worth asking yourself these questions:
Firstly, do you really need multiple pages on this topic? Would it be possible to combine those posts instead? If you do need both pages to exist independently, do they both need to appear in the search results? You could set your preferred page as canonical if the others don’t need to rank. Or stop search engines from showing certain posts by noindexing them.
If you’ve decided it’s best to keep all of your similar pages, and you want them all to appear in the search results, then you need another solution. There must be some difference between your pages, if you’ve decided to keep them all separate, right? Thinking about why each post needs to exist can help you figure out what the difference is. And how to make that difference clear to search engines.
Think about long-tail keywords
Are your pages about different aspects of the same topic? Then you might want to think about targeting long-tail keywords, instead of having them all target one head keyword. Long-tail keywords can help you drill down into various related topics and subtopics, creating many more opportunities to rank. It
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This article was written by Amy Lees and originally published on SEO blog • Yoast.