Can two posts Share Same Keyword?

Can two or more posts share the same keyword? This question doesn’t have a clear answer up to now because Google itself hasn’t come out to clarify the truth. Some search engine optimization experts have come to explain the point of posts sharing the same focus keyword and from what i have seen most of them discourage using the same keyword on two or more posts.

Am going to lay down two arguments. The first one supports the idea of two or more posts sharing the same keyword under some conditions while the second discourages it claiming it’s Keyword Cannibalization.

Also Read: How to Optimize your posts for Search Engine

First argument on posts sharing same keyword

In our first argument, two or more posts can share the same keyword on condition that their keyword densities are variant and the content on both pages are different. If two posts with the same SEO focus keyword density share the same keyword then search engine bots might get confused on which post to return for a search query. Most SEO plugins calculate the Keyword density for you and help you keep it within the required density which is 2.4% maximum. If you lack a plugin that calculates keyword density then i suggest you use a unique keyword for every post.

If both pages have similar content and keywords then you will lose traffic for both pages. The whole point here is if a search engine crawler or bot gets confused within two posts then it will ignore both implicating none of the pages will drive reasonable traffic to your blog.

Second argument on posts sharing same keyword

The second argument discourages using the same keyword on more than two posts and refers to it as Keyword Cannibalization. Keyword Cannibalization is said to hurt a site’s rank and creates a bad SEO structure for it. Like said earlier, when bots get confused they usually ignore both pages. Worst of all both pages lose relevance on search engines too which is not good for SEO.

If you have already used a keyword on more than one post it’s recommended to create new web pages and use 301 redirects to direct all traffic from the old permalink to the new post. By doing this you won’t get any broken links on your website or 404 results due to a missing permalink.

Also Read: Ways to increase Website Traffic without Marketing

Of the two arguments, the second is the most common and i have heard it from a couple of SEO experts. So what happens when majority of the experts recommend it? it simply shows their opinions could be right. The second argument makes more sense to me and for that reason, i discourage you from using the same keyword on more than one post if you are to build a strong SEO structure. Your keyword selection should be unique.