Have you ever navigated away from a website overwhelmed with low-quality, spammy articles? Many sites, in their haste to produce content, end up with pages that offer minimal value. This not only frustrates users but also damages the site’s credibility.
The issue is more profound.
Poor content not only deters visitors but also negatively impacts your site’s ranking with search engines. Google, for example, prioritizes websites that deliver rich, valuable content. To truly enhance your online presence, it’s essential to consider a content consolidation strategy.
But what exactly is content consolidation, how can you utilize it, and will it make a difference? Let’s explore.
We’ll cover the following:
- What Is Content Consolidation?
- 4 Benefits of Content Consolidation
- 6 Steps To Start Building Your Content Consolidation Strategy
What Is Content Consolidation?
Content consolidation involves refining and strengthening your existing content.
The aim is to improve quality, relevance, and value by removing unnecessary elements and emphasizing what matters to your audience. This process starts with a comprehensive review of your current content, identifying what works, what doesn’t, and what can be improved using content curation tools.
“By consolidating outdated or thin content on your site, you will enhance user experience and increase content quality,” said Brandon George, Director of Content at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency.
Here’s a glimpse of what consolidated content looks like:
- Merged Similar Topics: Combining multiple posts on the same topic into one comprehensive resource.
- Updated Information: Refreshing outdated content with current, relevant data and insights.
- Enhanced Depth and Quality: Transforming superficial pieces into detailed, well-researched articles.
- Aligned With User Intent: Ensuring content meets the needs and queries of your target audience.
- Created With Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in Mind: Fine-tuning content to align with best SEO practices and keyword strategies.
“This will help meet Google’s helpful content requirements and help you build more powerful pieces that, ultimately, should rank higher in the SERPs,” George said.
Content consolidation is an ongoing process. As your business evolves and user needs change, your existing content must also adapt.
But Why Not Build More Content Instead?
While expanding your content library may seem like a quick fix, it’s not always the most effective SEO strategy.
Adding new content without considering overlap risks creating multiple pieces competing for the same search intent. Google typically shows a limited number of results from the same domain for a given query, meaning your content could end up competing against itself, reducing its overall visibility.
Consolidating content allows you to focus on quality over quantity.
For example, Google consolidated six microsites for Google Retail into one, which doubled CTA click-through rates and increased organic traffic by 64%.
4 Benefits of Content Consolidation
Content consolidation offers numerous advantages for your brand and marketing efforts. Here are four key benefits:
1. Improves Your SEO Performance
Google prioritizes relevant, high-quality content. Through its Quality Rater Guidelines and E-E-A-T framework, Google specifies what it seeks in content.
With this content optimization strategy, you’re more likely to satisfy these criteria, proving your content’s value by:
- Enhancing Expertise and Authority: By merging similar topics into in-depth resources, consolidated content demonstrates higher expertise and authority.
- Improving User Trust: A single, well-crafted page that thoroughly addresses a topic is more likely to earn user trust than multiple, disjointed pages.
- First-hand Experience Representation: Content based on first-hand experience adds authenticity and relevance.
Merging and refining your content enhances its quality and relevance, adhering to guidelines more effectively. This approach is crucial for Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics, where accuracy and trustworthy advice are essential.
2. Streamlines Company and Brand Messaging
George identifies two types of content to consolidate:
- Duplicate Content: Replace with unique, original content to prevent reader fatigue.
- Thin Content: Add depth and analysis to enhance value.
Replacing these content types simplifies search engine understanding and ranking.
“Google ranks content that is helpful and provides value,” George said. “You get fewer pages with better content, which is a big plus from an SEO perspective.”
3. Enhances User Experience and Navigation
Websites are like digital real estate. Cluttered and disorganized sites are less appealing. If users find it difficult to navigate your site, they are likely to leave and seek information elsewhere.
Consolidated content offers clear, organized information on specific topics, improving content performance by eliminating confusion caused by multiple pages covering similar topics with varying quality and depth.
4. Future-Proof Your Content
If your website has been active for years, there may be outdated or irrelevant content needing consolidation, updating, or deletion. Consolidation allows you to reassess and refresh content, making it more relevant and valuable for your audience.
Maintain fresh and engaging content by:
- Optimizing for evergreen topics
- Updating statistics and insights
- Adding new multimedia elements
Consolidating existing content helps identify gaps and opportunities.
6 Steps To Start Building Your Content Aggregation Strategy
How do you begin consolidating content without feeling overwhelmed? Here are six steps to get started:
Step 1: Audit Your Content via SEO Tools
Start by auditing your content using SEO tools to identify duplicate or underperforming pages needing consolidation.
“Regularly audit your content and update any blogs or pages that have become outdated,” George said.
Use tools like:
- Google Search Console: Insights into content performance in search results.
- Ahrefs: Analyzes site content structure and identifies duplicate content.
- Screaming Frog: Identifies technical issues and underperforming pages.
- Semrush: Provides a comprehensive overview of site SEO performance.
Service and product pages should be audited and updated frequently, while blogs and other content types should be audited at least once a year.
Step 2: Redirect Links to Better-Performing Pages
After auditing, redirect links to better-performing pages. Identify which pages effectively engage your audience and direct traffic from less effective pages to these key pages.
Tools used in the auditing process help identify which pages have the most inbound links and highest traffic.
For instance, Google Search Console shows which pages appear most frequently in search results and receive the most clicks.
Focusing on high-performing pages and redirecting links from similar, less successful content enhances your content marketing efforts by increasing visibility and traffic to your most impactful pages.
Step 3: Identify Content That Competes With Each Other
Content cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on your site compete for the same keyword, causing them to rank lower in search results.
This issue dilutes the value of your content and confuses search engines.
Identify competing content by looking for:
- Overlapping Keywords: Multiple pages targeting the same or similar keywords.
- Similar Content Themes: Pages covering the same topics or answering similar questions.
- Redundant Information: Repeated information without adding new value or perspective.
- Divided Traffic and Engagement: Analytics showing split traffic and engagement metrics across similar pages.
Merging competing content enhances depth, so users don’t need to switch between pages.
Step 4: Balance Consolidation and Ongoing Content Creation
Content aggregation doesn’t contradict creating new content. Both work together to strengthen your SEO efforts. While consolidation improves existing content, creating new content helps:
- Attract new audience segments
- Address emerging trends and insights
- Provide opportunities for internal linking
- Keep your website dynamic
For expert assistance in content marketing, social media marketing, and other digital strategies, consider partnering with Cyberset.
