SEO Squeeze #104: You Might Be Competing With Yourself.

For today’s squeeze I wanted to share a bit more about a question I get asked a lot. It goes like this…

You niched down, you write about the same handful of topics on purpose, and now you’re a little worried all those similar pages are competing against each other on Google.

Did you know that showing up more than once for the same keyword is not the problem.

The fancy name for two pages stepping on each other is called “keyword cannibalization”.

All it means is Google can’t tell which of your pages to rank, so it shrugs and ranks neither one well.

The word that matters is differentiated. Same keyword doing a different job on each page and you’re golden. Same keyword doing the same job twice, that’s where it gets messy.

Watch this. I searched site:duocollective.com SEO keywords (more on that little trick in a sec) and a whole lot of pages popped up. 👀

But even with pages of results for the same keyword, I am not concerned about keyword cannibalization. Because every one of them does a different job. One’s a how-to guide for choosing a keyword. One’s a podcast episode. One’s our masterclass page. One’s a beginner guide. Same keyword, four totally different reasons to click.

Ready to run yours? You can do it in about 60 seconds.

1. Search your own site.

Go to Google and type site:yourwebsite.com then your keyword, like site:yourwebsite.com fall wedding.

→ That little site: part tells Google to only show pages from your website.

2. Eyeball what comes back.

If two or three pages are clearly trying to answer the same question the same way, that’s your overlap.

3. Give it the one-line test.

For each page, see if you can say in one sentence why a reader would click that one instead of the other. If you can, they’re differentiated and you’re good. If both pages give the same answer, they’re competing, and that’s your sign to either sharpen one into a different angle or fold them into one stronger page.

Now jump in and let me know what you find.

P.S. If you run the check and find a big ol’ pile of overlap, do NOT panic-delete anything. Pick the two pages that bug you most and start there.

Have you met the Duo yet?
Well let's get that out of the way, shall we!? We are Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen, the Minnesota-based marketing experts, educators, and co-founders of a boutique marketing agency called Duo Collective. One part design and one part strategy we specialize in helping you grow your business without spending money on paid ads, specifically through SEO and branding for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs just like you!

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