While it’s great to be churning out high-value, helpful content, it’s important to ensure it doesn’t overshadow existing content throughout your site. Even when aiming for specific, long-tail keywords, it might bring more harm than good if it’s similar or closely related to other published content currently bringing traffic to your site.
This is where content consolidation comes into play. By taking a step back and reevaluating the current library of content, you can find ways to combine multiple relevant, low-performing pages together into one post to send strong organic search signals and attract more traffic.
While it sounds like a simple process, careful planning and implementation are required to ensure that your consolidation efforts will bear fruit. We’ll walk you through it so that you can hit the ground running and get the traffic and conversions you need to succeed.
When to Consider Content Consolidation
The content consolidation process usually comes after you conduct a content audit of your existing library and measure current performance. In this case, valuable metrics like clicks and impressions on similar content are the canaries in the coal mine. You might find that performance on these pages is lower than expected, both for existing pages and newly published posts that cover similar topics.
This is called cannibalization. Rather than one strong page ranking for specific keyword themes, you have multiple URLs on your site, all competing for the same set of keywords.
As a result, cannibalization leads to a loss of overall performance. In this scenario, Google has trouble determining which of your pages has the definitive information on the topic and ranks neither page as strongly. As a result, competing pages from your rivals could rank higher if they have a single, well-thought-out piece of content.
To get back on a winning track, you’ll need to look at the data to determine which pages have similar content and create a plan for combining them into one page that contains updated and valuable information.
Planning Your Content Consolidation Strategy
First, you’ll need to identify the pages that need to be consolidated. Even though you might know the central theme or keywords that are used in multiple content pages, it can still be difficult to find them one by one, especially if the library is vast and contains years of content.
Fortunately, there are tools that make it easy to narrow your search, such as Google Search Console (GSC). Under the “Search results” tab, you can enter a query keyword as a filter to see which pages on your site show up for that term. You can also use advanced search commands on Google to see what comes up for specific keywords on your site. Type the following search query into Google’s search bar:
site:example-site.com “your keyword phrase”
The next question is: Which URL stays, and which ones need a redirect? Once again, GSC is your best friend here. First, figure out which metrics matter the most to your goals, be it clicks, impressions, etc. With your key performance indicators defined, you can then plug the competing URLs into GSC and see which ones are closest to meeting your specified metrics, as well as searchers’ intent. The strongest piece based on your criteria will be the main piece of content you’ll need to refresh and consolidate the other versions into.
Of course, consolidation is more than just copying/pasting from your weaker pieces to bolster your strongest piece of content. You must review each piece with a fine-toothed comb and pick the sections that add value to your consolidated content piece. Make sure that you include updated, pertinent information, whether it’s from another page or if you identify new information throughout your research process. Content consolidation is a combination of writing new content and optimizing existing pages. You’re not necessarily starting from scratch, but you are making sure that the information and targeted keywords are up to date to make the most out of your consolidation.
Once your consolidated page is updated and published, you can set up 301 redirects from the cannibalized pages that point to your updated page. This is a crucial step in the consolidation process as these redirects help transfer link authority to your consolidated page, providing the extra boost it will need if it’s to climb the search rankings.
Monitor and Iterate
The work of a search engine optimization profesional is never done, and neither is your latest consolidation. In the coming months, you’ll follow the same content measurement routine that you would have for other content pieces to ensure that your consolidation efforts pay off.
Content consolidation is a viable strategy for bolstering your site’s authority and expertise in a space. Readers don’t want to go down the rabbit hole in a topic and end up with 15 variants of the same topic, and neither does Google. By providing a unified, definitive piece of content, you create valuable signals of trust, authority, and authenticity that increase the likelihood of more sessions, clicks, and conversions.
