Wordpress site architecture conflicts and how to go about fixing them

[mtking.us_gmail.com]

I am attempting to figure something out with a site I'm trying to fix.  So the problem is that I've got two categories that are basically related keywords. I set this up when I first started doing this work and didn't know what I was doing.  So that site at one time was ranking on the first page for a specific term (example: 'project manager salary' and posted in the category 'project manager salary'.  But they we added 'project manager salary in Vermont' and all other 50 posts for all states in a different category called, 'project manager salaries and benefits'.

So my question is this:

Would this cause some kind of keyword rank cannibalization?

How do I fix this properly?

Thanks!

Michael

[jgower]

I dont fully understand, but it sounds like you're trying to rank for specific keywords and rank for long tails of those keywords for each state?  I'd categorize by state, then tag with the keyword.