Content is one of the cornerstones of any search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. It’s the main reason so many modern brands focus on churning out blogs month after month. However, no matter how creative your brand is, your blog topics will eventually start to blend and your winning strategy will form a loop of cannibalizing keywords that could eventually stall your SEO success. Good content provides value to users and helps to establish the authority of a website or brand. While most brands understand this, they miss out on the benefits of content consolidation and the approach of making the most of what valuable content they already have. Let’s take a look at content consolidation, how your brand should approach it, and, most importantly, how it can positively impact your search engine rankings.

What is Content Consolidation, and Why is it Important for SEO?

Content consolidation is the process of taking content from multiple sources across your site and moving it into a single location or post. You can perform content consolidation manually or through automation tools like Screaming Frog or Google Sheets. Content consolidation is an SEO practice that can help brands improve their site’s user experience, visibility, and click-through rate (CTR). Want to know more about the benefits of consolidation? Don’t worry; we’ll get into that later!

How to Approach Content Consolidation for SEO?

Consolidating content can help improve your site’s visibility. By consolidating content into a single location, you make it easier for search engines to find and index it. This can lead to a higher ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), and more website visitors. Let’s explore some ways you can determine whether your site’s content needs consolidation.

• Your blog posts, landing pages, white pages, and other content have cannibalized your high-priority keywords
• Many of the blogs about the same or related topics contain outdated information
• Older content doesn’t focus on quality and doesn’t have high levels of expertise, authority, and trustworthiness
• Google crawls pages but doesn’t index them
• You’ve recently noted the appearance of several soft 404s

Now you know when it’s time to consolidate your content, but how should you do it? Manually or with a program like Screaming Frog? We believe that combining both efforts can help you create an authoritative, single source for a particular topic or service. Automated programs can help you determine where duplicate, low-quality, and similar content live on your site. From there, your team can analyze the data, manually review each qualifying content piece, and begin to de-optimize or move relevant content onto a new document while eliminating the URL for the old blog or service page. Remember, quality content is great content, no matter what. So, don’t sweat it if you find yourself moving paragraphs from a blog onto a new landing or service page! As long as your users can gain as much relevant information on the subject in one place as possible, the page will likely be high-quality and demand authority when Google crawls and indexes it.

What Are Some Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Consolidating Content?

Content consolidation isn’t as simple as picking and choosing the right points to add or delete from existing content. It’s easy to make mistakes that could make the entire process a moot point for your SEO strategy. Failing to use the correct tools like Screaming Frog and Google Sheets can lead to inaccurate or incomplete data consolidation. These programs automate the process and help reduce the risk of human error resulting from manual content consolidation. You want to include all content in the consolidation process. Automated tools ensure this happens. Another issue that could arise is over-consolidation. Over-consolidating content can lead to decreased website visibility and lower SEO rankings. When you consolidate into too small of a space, it can be difficult for search engines to index all of it properly. You want to ensure that the final product is large enough to present quality content in large chunks. By consolidating content into larger pieces, you make it easier for search engines to find and index it correctly. This can lead to improved SEO results and more website visitors.

How Does Consolidating Content Improve Your Website’s Ranking in the SERPs?

Spreading out similar content across multiple pages, makes it difficult for search engines to accurately index your pages. By consolidating content into a single location, you create one destination for search engines to index content and ensure that the keywords you’re targeting are gaining the attention that pushes your site higher up in qualified search results.

Improved CTR

Consolidating content can also help increase CTR. Users who see multiple links to the same content are less likely to click on any of them. By consolidating content into a single location, you make it easier for users to find and click on the content they are looking for. This can lead to increased website traffic and quality conversions.

Improved User Experience

Consolidating content can also help improve the user experience. It can be frustrating and time-consuming when users have to navigate through multiple pages to find the content they are looking for. By consolidating content into a single location, you make it easy for users to find what they are looking for with minimal effort. This can lead to a better user experience, more satisfied customers, and boost your site’s industry authority.

What are Some Other Benefits of Content Consolidation Your Brand Should Consider?

The benefits of content consolidation are vast. When businesses consolidate their content, they can improve their SEO results, as well as their website’s overall readability. In addition, content consolidation can help businesses save time and money by making it easier to update and manage their website content. Finally, content consolidation can help businesses create a more effective online presence by providing a more consistent message across all their web pages.

Consolidate Your Content for Success with Dallas SEO Dogs

If your site is full of content but isn’t gaining the attention it deserves, it’s probably time to consider consolidating your content. The team at Dallas SEO Dogs can help you review your content and create consolidated pages that answer all user questions about a topic or service. Let our content services, technical SEO, on-site optimization and other services give your site a boost in relevance. Schedule your free consultation today!   About the author: We started as a small SEO company with 4 employees in 2006. Today, we’re a comprehensive digital marketing agency with a staff of 30+. Dallas SEO Dogs is one of the leading digital marketing agencies in the United States. We are a close group diverse in ethnicity, gender, age, personality, interest, and religious background. Team members have different experiences, perspectives, and insights into a wide array of business types and audience demographics.