How Should I Resolve this SEO Keyword Cannibalization Problem?

[CaptainHustle]

Here is my dumb question of the day.

I wrote an article a few weeks ago which was ranking for a lot of keywords. I identified a promising keyword that the article was not optimized for and went ahead and wrote a different article optimized for that keyword because I believe these keywords have different search intents. These articles are interlinked and are currently ranking for both the keywords. Unfortunately, the initial article has dropped in rankings for its optimized keyword after I posted the newer article.

Long story short, I want to resolve this keyword cannibalization. Here are the options before me.

1) Should I create a new page that combines both these pages and 301 both of them there (I'm unsure if I should be using 301s so lightly)?

2) Merge the newer one into the older one and deindex or delete the newer one?

3) Edit the older article to de-optimize it for the kw I want to rank the newer one for and keep everything as is?

Thanks a lot.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@CaptainHustle, based on the information you've given, I think I'd go for option #3.

I would de-optimize the original article for the keyword that you want the newer post to rank for. I'd also be careful about making sure the new article is not optimized for the terms in the first article.

If they're truly different intents and the keywords reflect that, then I wouldn't start doing 301's and merging. That's what I'd do if they were similar though. You can search the SERPs themselves to determine that.

 

[CaptainHustle]

@CaptainHustle, based on the information you've given, I think I'd go for option #3.

I would de-optimize the original article for the keyword that you want the newer post to rank for. I'd also be careful about making sure the new article is not optimized for the terms in the first article.

If they're truly different intents and the keywords reflect that, then I wouldn't start doing 301's and merging. That's what I'd do if they were similar though. You can search the SERPs themselves to determine that.

The content is similar, but it pursues a different angle but provides the same solution because it applies to both. So I guess there is some logic in both articles ranking for it. In that case, would you suggest I merge or 301?