In this post, I will show you how to combine two articles into one, which can help improve SEO for your blog and thus help you to increase traffic and authority.
So your website revolves around having great articles and you’ve been publishing worthy content for some time.
The chances that you may eventually publish two articles concerning the same (or at least a similar) topic increase over time, especially if you’re dealing with a very specific niche.
When this happens, you may want to combine the two articles into one single article in order to improve SEO and generally provide a better experience for your readers.
Essentially, you’ll be putting all the information they need in one place and so they won’t have to waste time searching your site for that other piece of content.
How can this be done properly?
Well, we are going to discuss that in the rest of this article, so stick around.
Post Chapters
Why Combine Articles?
First of all, for clarification: The same principle can be used if you want to combine three or more articles into one. We are using two in this case for simplicity’s sake.
Now, how does combining multiple articles into one benefit you exactly?
Well, there are several positive attributes to consider.
First, your article can rank for more keywords, which gives your website a larger scope of potential visitors.
Second, the article you decide to expand could very easily make your visitors stay longer. Longer posts, provided that they actually do have a lot of useful things to say, generally perform better and will keep readers engaged.
Finally, combining multiple blog articles into one will help you get rid of the articles that are not doing well while preserving the content on your website.
Obviously, the topics have to be related in some way so that you don’t simply stick two completely unrelated pieces of content together. Instead, you will build on and enrich the best article you have.
Make sure that the content you’re merging complements each other and provides more value so that you can essentially have one big pillar article for whatever topic you’re dealing with in the end.
OK, so this process has several steps, and we’ll go through them all here – it’s nothing too complicated, but there are some things to be mindful of. Let’s get started.
How to combine two articles: The process
Step One: Copying And Pasting
OK, let’s say you have two articles you want to merge; we’ll call them Article A and Article B.
They cover similar topics, meaning they both provide information that will be of interest to the same readers. But, article A is not performing so well.
Based on this information alone, we can see that the URL of article B is more valuable to you, so this is the blog post you will expand on while the other one (or other ones) will end up in the trash.
After that, you only need to copy and paste the text from the lower-ranking article(s), in this case, article A, into the best-ranking one (B).
Step Two: Cleaning Things Up
Of course, once all the copying and pasting is done, the assembled body of text will be a mess. So, be prepared to invest some time into sorting everything out.
Remove everything that is already covered in article B and keep only the new things article A brings to the table.
Also, pay extra attention to the structure of the text. The longer the article is the more important its readability becomes. With that in mind, try to merge new paragraphs and sentences with the old ones into cohesive units.
Hopefully, people will spend a lot of time on this new article of yours, which means you have to make things comfortable for them. If you’re merging several articles into one, don’t be afraid to divide the whole resulting piece of content with subtitles.
Some people even create chapters or tables of content. A clear structure will help people find what they’re looking for more easily.
Step Three: Redirecting
OK, so you’re satisfied with the way the newly created article looks, its keyword density, and all that stuff. But what about the old articles? They are of no further use to you. right?
Well, as you can see from the name of this step, the answer is simple – use redirects.
Redirect every page you took any text from onto the one you decided to build on (in our example, the one containing article B).
Doing this the right way is vital for this whole process to succeed, especially if you’ve been using the old page(s) to create backlinks.
We don’t want to lose that precious traffic, do we? So, you should always use the right tool for the job: 301 Redirects plugin makes the whole process smooth and simple because it’s so easy to use and comes with a host of features.
There is another popular redirection plugin available to download from the WordPress repository here that you might want to check out.
Once you’re done, do make sure you thoroughly check all redirects because we don’t want any 404 errors appearing.
Step Four: What About The Comments?
If you have any comments under the article(s) you are redirecting from, don’t ignore them. It would be a very good idea to transfer them too to that new article you have created. This is not obligatory, though, and may require some time and effort, but it can be quite beneficial.
Comments under the article add value to the article itself. They can attract people to stay on your website longer and with a little bit of luck, a very interesting discussion can develop between your readers (you’d do well to be active in the comments too, to help things along).
This will mean that the people are enjoying your content and that they come back to it regularly, plus they will be much more likely to share links to the page they’re commenting on thus giving you a boost on so many different levels. You will get backlinks and your brand will become more recognizable.
Congratulations, you’re done!
Your website now has one big comprehensive article which will give your readers everything they want to know in one place, hopefully with plenty of interesting details and a nice pace of content to keep them engaged. Well done!
What Are The SEO Effects Here?
So, how does all of this boost your SEO?
Well, there are a few answers to that.
First of all, more content on your page means that your visitors will spend more time there, which is a signal to Google to rank your article higher because it shows people regularly find what they’re looking for there.
As a matter of fact, some studies suggest that Google actually prefers longer posts.
On top of that, longer articles are more likely to get shared via social networks (some interesting results can be found here) and get you more good backlinks. This will increase the volume of traffic your page receives.
These are some very important factors Google takes into consideration when ranking pages, which is why combining two or more articles into one can do you so much good.
All of this, however, will only happen under the condition that your renewed post is of decent quality. If it provides value and answers the questions people may have in such a way no other articles are needed. People will stick around and gladly read everything. Do not think your visitors have a short attention span: This is not always the case. If they are passionate about the topic you’re dealing with, they will invest time and effort to get the information they need.
Wrapping things up
So, to wrap things up, when combining articles into one, first make sure they cover a similar topic. If they do, make the best-performing article the one you will be expanding in order to boost its performance even further.
Then take the text from the other article(s) and copy and paste it into the main one. Do make an effort that everything looks good and makes your reader comfortable when reading the content because if the post doesn’t provide value and the info they need, this will all be for nothing. The final step is to redirect the old deleted articles to the newly formed or revised ones.
These steps are done with only one goal in mind: To help your readers find all the information they need in one place.
If they need to look more after reading your article, you should try to add value to it. That’s the foundation of everything – provide your readers with what they need and you will be rewarded!
Best of luck.
Recommended Posts
Did you enjoy reading this post? Check out these recommended posts below –