How to avoid duplicate content when blogging from a site

[wianno168]

I have a wordpress plastic surgery website. I have a wordpress blog on the site.

My concern is avoiding duplicate content penalties when I blog. I use my blog to add new information about procedures that have pages on the same topic on the main site. Invariably same keywords and phrases can appear in the blog-will this be considered Duplicate content?

Also is it black hat to insert anchor text in a blog linking back to site content-ie internal link or is one now and then helpful

[Whebb]

Hello,

As long as the content is not identical then you should not have  any issues with duplicate content. If the same keywords or phrases appear that is alright, but try not to over due it and mix it up as best you can. As for the internal linking, it is ok to link internally, but again, mix it up. Don't use the same keywords in the anchor text over and over, use different phrases and always, make it sound natural. Focus on the content and don't over optimize your pages.

[wianno168]

Thank you for your helpful advice

[JaneCopland]

Hi,

If you have a page on a certain procedure, a blog post about that procedure should aim to expand on the existing content rather than repeat it in an attempt to create fresh content. You're naturally going to mention the same topics, but this is normal and Google sees "similar" content all over the web all the time. What you'd be looking to do with a blog to make it both useful for search engines and people, is take a topic where you have basic information on a "product" page and consider exploring the following for a blog post (please excuse a lack of surgery knowledge here!):

1. Gather the latest medical research on the procedure and talk about how it has changed over time
2. Go into more detail about how a procedure is different for men and woman (if it is) and what needs to be considered when treating patients
3. Tips for how to maximise results after the procedure is complete
4. Common recovery issues and how to resolve them or watch out for them

Any new or different information you can include will add to the status of the blog post as a new, relevant piece of content, rather than something that has been repurposed from a product page.

You can link internally in the way described above, but make sure you're always linking with the intention of explaining what the linked-to page is about, rather than with the idea that you are trying to manipulate how search engines view the page.

[wianno168]

Jane,

Thank you very much. That is what I try to do-blog on a sub topic to add more depth to the page topic. I have just been paranoid after Penguin about trying to avoid similar key words and phrases that can be in page-but impossible for blog to make sense without some repetition.

Dr. Seckel