What is Content Consolidation in SEO and how do you use it?

The thing is that when you are creating content on a particular topic you need to make it a point that the viewers who are reading can relate it to each other and this is where you need the content consolidation. One of the major factors relating to Google with Content Consolidation is Google’s threshold quality and how it relates to indexing. Several elements contribute to the value proposition of an individual page and domain. One of the key concepts that Google covers in their Quality Rater Guidelines is “beneficial purpose” which clearly states the utility of your content.

In the absence of Content Consolidation, the ranking seems to come down mainly because of the following reasons-

1.?Changed SERPs (and now present users with different value propositions).

2.??The site has spread value around a specific topic across too many URLs to rank multiple URLs for multiple keywords.

When you audited, and consolidate these pages (or page elements), you have strengthened the value proposition of the target page and seen performance improve, and the pages better align with what Google is now choosing to serve on Page 1.

Google has discussed content consolidation, but more in the context of consolidating domains or subdomains that overlap or compete for the same topics and terms.

By applying the logic of value proposition and beneficial purpose to this, we can do the same for documents existing within a single domain.

What is Content Consolidation?

Content Consolidation is the process of merging different pieces of content, such as blog posts, articles, or landing pages built for SEO, into a single, cohesive article. This single cohesive piece has a strong value proposition (and main content), and supporting elements that link to associated content (supporting content). During this process, you will also naturally be removing (or correcting) outdated and incorrect content.

This should work in line with your overall content strategy in either generating visibility at the top of the funnel or answering use case questions to then direct the user journey toward your conversion-oriented pages.

Consolidation audits should focus on the content, and in my opinion, keep the page type agnostic. For example, there’s no harm in moving elements from blog posts onto the commercial pages if it helps enhance the commercial page’s value proposition and rank for more relevant queries.

Definition of “quality”

Section 3.1 of the Quality Rater Guidelines defines a bullet list of the most important factors in determining page quality. But the first bullet point in this list is the one that relates closely to beneficial purpose, and this is literally “the purpose of the page”

Each page has a different purpose (e.g., providing information or selling a product/ service). A page quality score is then applied to that page type.

As Google has been augmenting and refreshing SERPs in recent months, some seemingly changing or mixing contrasting intents (to provide results to cover multiple common interpretations more than before), “ beneficial purpose” has become more poignant. When we then start talking about a page having a relevant “beneficial purpose” has become more poignant. When we then start talking about a page having a relevant beneficial purpose, and high quality, we enter the realms of describing pages as having:

1.?High levels of E-A-T

2.?High quality and satisfactory levels of the main content (defining the core beneficial purpose)

3.?Good levels of relevant, supporting content

By contrast, a page can have a strong beneficial purpose (e.g., to sell or promote a product or service), but it will struggle if it lacks other factors. Because Google ranks URLs, distributing a topic and its content (and beneficial purpose) over too many dilutes potential value.

Consolidation process

Several data sources can inform your consolidation efforts. These include:

· Common analytics tools for page views, entrances, and exits.

·?Google Search Console

·?You rank tracking tool of choice

With this data, you will be able to identify potential problem areas.

Identifying priority URL Targets

When I’ve worked with clients to do this, the first question is “Where do we start?” The best answer lies within Google Search Console. Within coverage reports, we want to look for pages that have been categorized in the excluded section as:

· Crawled- currently not indexed

·?Alternate page with proper canonical tag

· Duplication without user-selected canonical

· Duplication, Google chose a different canonical than the user

·?Soft 404

Grouping Pages

As mentioned earlier in the article, removing good content segments from a blog URL and adding them to a commercial URL (if it makes sense to do so and enhances value proposition) isn’t bad before removing the dissected page.

For several established websites, you may identify that you have multiple blog articles and other areas of the website (such as support) all competing for similar terms.

This is a good opportunity to realign these pages. For example, you may have a blog article targeting some top-of-funnel terms, and a support article targeting specific issues, Here you can de-optimize the article to not compete with the support article as it provides a better value proposition and better satisfies the intent of the support queries.

There is no set strategy or framework to follow in doing this, as all websites and content strategies are structured differently.

However, your core focus should be on maintaining and improving the performance of business metrics (e.g., leads, revenue) –even if it comes at the cost of some page views.

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Reference article- https://searchengineland.com/content-consolidation-seo-386518