Running multiple campaigns together for gaining organic and paid traffic can disturb the result, cannibalizing your profits. Keep reading to find out what Keyword Cannibalization means and how marketers can avoid it.
Cannibalization in marketing happens if paid search campaigns or organic promotion targeting the same query start competing with each-other. It will decrease the solo results significantly.
1. For PPC, if several ad sets compete for being shown for the identical keyword, it can prove to be catastrophic.
2. For SEO (organic traffic), if we have two or more site pages in the search results for the same query, it can neutralize all the efforts going into the website.
When two or more pages on the site rank for a particular keyword, this can happen-
1. The weaker page can ultimately decrease your conversions.
2. Google bots may recognize this as keyword stuffing. If Google identifies this as spam, the overall website ranking can decrease.
Does keyword cannibalization affect your PPC?
- You can override the budget with Keyword overlap.
- When multiple ad sets compete for a specific keyword in Google Ads, the auction price goes up. You would have to set a higher price for the other ad. There is a possibility that a less fit one could win the auction for the keyword.
- Always avoid Geo overlap! Let us understand how this happens. If you set one ad for Delhi and another to India without excluding Delhi, Geo Overlap occurs.
- The result will be the same. The auction will rise higher, and the winning ad may not be for the location you desire.
- There is also a discussion on whether to run a Google ad for a high ranking organic keyword. Users may click on organically generated SERP link than the ad.
Companies often face the hurdle of Keyword Cannibalization! With Switch2us you can solve this problem. We have digital experts providing efficient pay-per-click services to clients globally.
Here are some ways our experts suggest to handle Keyword Cannibalization-
- Find pages competing under a specific keyword. Use the free Google Search Console, go to the Performance section, click on a query and choose the Pages tab. See the pages ranking for this query, individual impressions and clicks, current rank, and CTR.
- If you find such an issue combine the content. If the web pages have the same content merge them to form a page that will rank high for the target keyword.
- If you don’t want to do this and keep the pages separate use the “canonical” tag to list the page you want in search results or hide the weaker page using the “no index” tag.
- You can also modify the page content to suit different customer intents. One can be for informational intent and another for transactional intent.
- There is another option to set these pages for other keywords. For this, you might need the help of professional services.
- Experiment with switching off keywords individually. Find the well-ranked keyword you use in PPC
- Check the organic traffic you get in a week compared to the previous week’s organic and paid traffic on this keyword.
- Also, observe the conversions and profits over this one week compared to the other.
As mentioned, Keyword cannibalization can happen in both SEO and PPC domains, therefore Switch2us uses standardized methods to diminish its possibility. Our skilled staff uses modern tools to regularly check the website performance. Want help to increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns? Book your free consultation with us today!
