How often have you clicked away from a site cluttered with spammy, superficial articles? In their rush to churn out content, many websites often end up with pages that offer little value. This not only frustrates users but also undermines the website’s credibility.
The problem runs deeper.
This kind of content not only turns off visitors but also hurts your site’s standing with search engines. Google, for instance, favors websites that provide rich, valuable content. So, if you really want to make an impact with your online presence, it’s time to consider a consolidation strategy.
But what is it, how can you leverage it and will it ever make a difference? Let’s find out.
Here’s what we’ll discuss:
• What Is Content Consolidation?
• 4 Benefits of Content Consolidation
• 6 Steps To Start Building Your Content Consolidation Strategy
What Is Content Consolidation?
Content consolidation is the process of refining and reinforcing your existing content.
The goal is to enhance quality, relevance and value, cutting the fluff and amplifying what matters to your audience. This process begins with thoroughly reviewing your existing content, identifying what works, what doesn’t and what can be improved through content curation tools.
“By consolidating outdated or thin content on your site you will improve user experience and increase the quality of the content,” said Brandon George, Director of Content at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency.
Here’s a snapshot 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• Updated Information: Refreshing outdated content with current, relevant data and insights.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 content optimization strategy, 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.
It’s important to note that 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 content optimization for SEO strategy.
When you keep adding new content without considering overlap, you risk 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 integration marketing 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 64% increased organic traffic.
4 Benefits of Content Consolidation
There are many ways content integration marketing can benefit your brand and marketing efforts.
Here are four key benefits to consider:
1. Improves Your SEO Performance
Google is obsessed with providing users with relevant, high-quality content. Through its Quality Rater Guidelines and E-E-A-T framework, Google tells us precisely what it looks for in content.
With this content optimization strategy, you’re more likely to tick these boxes and prove your content’s value, such as:
• Enhancing Expertise and Authority: By merging similar topics into in-depth, comprehensive resources, consolidated content demonstrates a higher level of expertise and authority on the subject.
• Improving User Trust: A single, well-crafted page that addresses a topic thoroughly is more likely to earn user trust than multiple, disjointed pages.
• First-hand Experience Representation: Content based on first-hand experience or deep involvement in the topic is highly valued, as it adds authenticity and relevance to the subject matter.
When you merge and refine your content, you will likely improve its overall quality and relevance, adhering to these guidelines more effectively. This approach is essential for Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics, where accuracy and trustworthy advice are crucial.
2. Streamlines Company and Brand Messaging
George identifies two types of content to consolidate:
• Duplicate Content: They must be replaced with unique, more original content so readers don’t get fatigued with the same, repeated information.
• Thin Content: You can add more value to this content type by bringing in more depth and analysis.
Replacing these two content types makes it easier for search engines to understand and rank your site.
“Google ranks content that is helpful and provides value,” George said.
“You get fewer pages that have better content and that’s a big plus from an SEO perspective.”
3. Enhances User Experience and Navigation
Websites are like digital real estate. The more cluttered and disorganized they are, the less appealing they become to visitors. And if people get confused or frustrated trying to navigate your site, they are likely to leave and look for information elsewhere.
Here are three examples of what consolidated content looks like. These content pieces include everything a person would want to know about their topics.
Content curation tools ensure your website remains focused and relevant, eliminating confusion caused by multiple pages covering similar topics with varying quality and depth. By providing clear and organized information on a specific topic in one place, you improve content performance.
4. Future-Proof Your Content
If you’ve been running your website for years, chances are there is a lot of outdated or irrelevant content that needs to be consolidated, updated or deleted. Consolidation allows you to reassess and refresh your content, making it more relevant and valuable for your audience.
You can do the following activities to keep your content fresh and engaging:
• Optimize for evergreen topics
• Update stats and insights
• Add new multimedia elements
You can only identify these gaps and opportunities by consolidating your existing content.
6 Steps To Start Building Your Content Aggregation Strategy
This sounds great, but what now? Consolidating content means you have a website with tons of information already in store. So, how do you start sifting through them without getting overwhelmed?
These six steps should be a great start:
Step 1: Audit Your Content via SEO Tools
You can’t start consolidating content without knowing what you have. Conduct a content audit using SEO content optimization tools to identify duplicate or underperforming pages that need consolidation.
“You want to regularly audit your content and update any blogs or pages that have become outdated,” George said.
There are several content curation tools you can use to do this, such as:
• Google Search Console: Offers insights into how your content performs in search results, showing which pages have the highest and lowest engagement.
• Ahrefs: Useful for analyzing your site’s content structure, identifying duplicate content and understanding how your pages rank for specific keywords.
• Screaming Frog: A comprehensive tool that crawls your website, helping you identify technical issues, duplicate content and underperforming pages.
• Semrush: Provides an extensive overview of your site’s SEO performance, including content analysis, keyword tracking and competitor comparison.
How often?
“Service and product pages should be audited and updated more often than that,” George said.
“Those are your money pages and should always remain relevant and as up-to-date as possible.”
On the other hand, blogs and other types of content should be audited at least once a year.
We recommend using a combination of these content optimization for SEO tools to get a comprehensive understanding of your content’s performance and identify gaps for consolidation.
Step 2: Redirect Links to Better-Performing Pages
After auditing your content, redirecting links to better-performing pages is the next step. You have to identify which pages are most effective in engaging your audience and then direct traffic from less effective pages to these critical pages.
The tools used in the auditing process are also valuable in this phase. They help identify which pages have the most inbound links and highest traffic, making it easier to decide where to redirect users.
For example, Google Search Console shows you which of your pages appear most frequently in search results and receive the most clicks.
Focusing on these high-performing pages and redirecting links from similar, less successful content elevates your content integration marketing efforts by increasing the visibility and traffic of your most impactful pages.
Step 3: Identify Content That Competes With Each Other
Cannibalization in SEO content optimization strategy is a common issue that occurs when multiple pages on your site compete for the same keyword, causing them to rank lower in search results.
This is detrimental to your SEO efforts as it dilutes the value of your content and confuses search engines.
But how do you identify internally competing content? There are four characteristics to look out for:
• Overlapping Keywords: Multiple pages targeting the same or similar keywords.
• Similar Content Themes: Pages that cover the same topics or answer similar questions.
• Redundant Information: Repeated information across various pages without adding new value or perspective.
• Divided Traffic and Engagement: Analytics showing split traffic and user engagement metrics across these similar pages.
Merging competing content enhances the depth of your pieces, so users do not have to switch between pages.
Step 4: Balance Consolidation and Ongoing Content Creation
All this talk about content aggregation might seem to contradict the idea of continuously creating new, fresh content. But that’s not the case.
Consolidation and new content work hand in hand to strengthen your content optimization for 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 in the eyes of search engines
Content aggregation takes time – from weeks to months – and you don’t want to risk losing out on potential traffic and engagement by not publishing new content. So, make sure to align these two content optimization strategies to provide a steady stream of website traffic.
Step 5: Optimize Consolidated Content E-E-A-T and SEO
You don’t want all those efforts to go to waste, do you? That’s why building your consolidated content is essential based on how Google wants to present the best content to its users – E-E-A-T principles.
“Look for content that some of your expert team members could weigh in on,” George said.
“Adding valuable quotes, advice, experience, case study info to that would be viewed more by Google as expert content and position your company more as a thought leader in its industry.”
Here’s a quick checklist of how to execute sustainable content optimization strategies:
• Ensure Relevance and Depth: Your content should thoroughly address the user’s query, providing comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information.
• Demonstrate Expertise: Highlight the expertise and credentials of content creators, especially for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics.
• Build Trust: Establish credibility by including trustworthy sources and accurate data in your content.
• Prioritize User Experience: Make sure the content is easy to read, engaging and well-structured for both users and search engines.
We’re not saying that you have to overhaul your entire content optimization strategies, but keeping these principles in mind while consolidating your content helps improve its overall quality and performance.
Step 6: Share Your Content With Everyone
The last step is simple: Let everyone in through content distribution.
This step can be as simple as sharing it on your social media channels or including it in your email newsletters. You can also reach out to other websites or influencers in your niche and ask them to share your content with their audience.
Doing this drives early traffic to your website and helps widen your content integration marketing efforts. Plus, with the improved quality and relevance of your content, it’s more likely to be shared by others organically.
Build Better Content With Thrive
Creating new content isn’t always the key to better rankings. Often, the real value lies in refining what you already have.
If you need help, Thrive Internet Marketing Agency offers comprehensive digital marketing and content writing services that elevate your brand and online presence. We’re a team of experienced strategists, experts and creatives who build quality, sustainable pieces to improve content performance.
Start creating content the right way with Thrive!
