Thread by @I___DEREKflint

Ways to tell which keywords belong to a single page/URL (aka beginning to understand topical/contextual intent). [Thread 🧵]

The stumbling block for #SEO beginners comes from choosing keyword targets and avoiding cannibalization.

Esp. since many keywords have the same intent.

Back to our goldfish theme to help tease out our points ;)

Let’s say your strategist has given you a keyword worth targeting for a blog post.

For this example, we’ll use: “what do goldfish eat”

Your initial goal here is to figure out which keywords you should be targeting for best reach with that blog post.

Throw that keyword into your keyword research tool.

Now scroll down to the section that gives you an initial preview of what the SERP looks like.

***I recommend always checking the actual SERP as these tools can have a lag on showing ranking shifts.

Now have a look at the "traffic" and "keywords" columns. Notice that each page is associated with 100s of keywords.

I recommend looking at the post in “position 3” here as the piece that will tell us the most about what keywords you’ll want to be targeting.

The reasons for this:

1️⃣ It is ranked in the top 3 positions and is technically position 1 of the organic URLs

2️⃣ Posts that end up in the featured snippet spot are not always the best pieces for ranking on that page in positions 1-3.

They often are articles that would otherwise be in positions 3-8 but have the best formatting for acquiring the snippet (still very important).

3️⃣ It has been recognized for significantly more keywords than the other top URLs for this keyword. And that makes me curious.

Side Note: The URL in position 8 is a really interesting example of a lower-ranking post on this SERP that has the highest estimated traffic volume.

I give more detail about that in my newsletter, but for this thread I'm going to move along.

If you're in @ahrefs, you can go ahead and click on the keyword number from this SERP preview (see image below)

This will allow us to see which keywords that particular URL is performing best for.

You should now see a list of keywords (image below).

Now we already know that this piece of content is associated with hundreds of keywords.

But what’s important to note is that this piece of content is not ranking on page 1 for all of those keywords.

The quickest way to understand the keywords that you’ll be targeting is to only focus on the keywords that are ranked in positions 1 through 10 for the competitor URL you choose.

There are exceptions but this general rule will take you pretty far.

What you need to know about the keywords ranked in the top 10 positions for this URL:

✅ They either share the exact same intent or intent so closely related to the others that you should be targeting these with a single piece of content.

Based on this point, if an SEO specialist or strategist tells you to target “goldfish treats” for one piece of content...

Then she or he tells you to target “treats for goldfish,” with another piece of content, CALL THAT SEO OUT immediately for not knowing how to do their job.

These two keywords have the same intent and generate very similar SERPs.

What happens when you target two keywords that have the same intent with two different pieces of content?

They cannibalize each other.

Google’s algorithms have historically tried preventing one website from being on page 1 for a keyword multiple times.

So Google will choose the piece it prefers and it will often deprecate both of your pages’ rankings.

Meaning sometimes neither..

...of them will rank on page 1.

De-index or redirect 1 of them, and you’ll see the other perform better.

✅ If your post ranks for a keyword that does not mean that that keyword is explicitly written out on the page.

Our example URL above has more than 150 keywords that it ranks for in positions 1-10 (are on page 1).

We no longer live in the age of keyword stuffing — we live in the age of intent.

You shouldn’t make an effort to put each phrase on the page...

These don’t work like hashtags on social media.

Remember that Google can’t “read” like you and I read. It doesn’t comprehend things from left to right.

It takes in each word individually, and then it has to interpret how the order and types of words impact the actual meaning

So if you talk about “goldfish treats,” your writer might naturally say something like:

“The types of treats that you can safely feed your goldfish…”

Google’s system will recognize that that is a sentence about goldfish treats and related to many keywords.

✅ Give writers your target keyword and add secondary keywords that provide context.

The target keyword should clue them into which competitor pieces to evaluate.

Our target keyword is:

"what can goldfish eat"

In addition, provide them with a list of secondary keywords.

Secondary keywords are any other keywords that rank in the top 10 for your competitor article AND that give additional context as to what the writer should be talking about.

From our screenshot, the secondary keywords might be:

"goldfish treats"

"what can you feed goldfish other than fish food"

This tells the writer that within the context of what goldfish eat, they'll need to discuss treats/and possibly human food that goldfish can eat

Examples of unhelpful secondary keywords would be:

-what food does goldfish eat
-what food do goldfish eat
-what kind of food do goldfish eat

The unhelpful secondary keywords all have the same exact intent. They don’t help your writer.

Bonus tip: The SERPs will tell you if it’s okay to target two seemingly related keyword targets

Targeting keywords can be understood from the lens of real estate. Your job is to help guide a company in its ability to own as much prime real estate on the SERPs as possible.

The only rule is, they're not allowed to own multiple properties on the same block.

When in doubt, let the SERPs to help you make that decision.

You’ll do this by comparing the results that you find on both pages (examples below).

If the URLs on both SERPs are overwhelmingly the same, then those keywords likely belong to one piece of content, not two.

Example of keywords with similar intent providing the same URLs on the SERP

If the URLs on both SERPs are entirely different, then you know that you’re safe to go create two pieces of content to target those queries.

Example of keywords that are different enough in intent that they generate different SERP results and can be targeted with two diff pages:

Side note: There are times when there is a 20% to 30% overlap of URLs between two keywords.

This makes for a slightly riskier gamble on whether or not these pieces will cannibalize.

Evaluate whether or not to go after them based on which positions those overlapping URLs are in

If the top-ranking URLs for 1 keyword are in positions 8-10 for a more specific longtail keyword that you want to target

+ you notice that the top-ranking pages for the longtail’s SERP are also much more specific in what they talk about

= it’s okay to then target these...

keywords using separate pieces of content.

You can always fix cannibalization with a copy/paste & a 301 redirect.

If you'd like the above + more on how to begin thinking about keywords in a more reader-friendly form - you can find it in my most recent newsletter (FREE to view):

derekseo.substack.com/p/your-misunde…

If you found this thread helpful, feel free to RT and share this thread with other SEOs looking for resources to help them learn!

✌🏼 🙏