Is it OK for SEO to create multiple pages that each use the main keyword but focus on different phrases?

Question

I won't give away my real target keywords here or what it is im trying to rank for. But this example lets say my company provides hairdressing & hairdressing training.

example.com/hairdressing
main keyword = Hairdressing

example.com/hairdressing-prices
main keyword = Hairdressing Prices

example.com/hairdressing-training
main keyword = Hairdressing Training

example.com/hairdressing-in-london
main keyword = hairdressing In London

example.com/hairdressing-in-birmingham
main keyword = hairdressing In Birmingham

example.com/hairdressing-in-manchester
main keyword = hairdressing In Manchester

So as you can see above, all of my keywords contain the same word "hairdressing". We also have 3 clinics based in London, Birmingham and Manchester. So a user will go to each of these pages to contact the specific clinic.

Is this good practise for SEO? Or will these pages compete for the keyword hairdressing and negatively impact me?

Answer 1

If you want to effectively rank for each one of those pages you must ensure that the context and content for those URLs are unique so users and searchers understand the differences.

If the content is very similar, Google will consider it as duplicate:

[...] different pages with similar content [...] Google sees these as duplicate versions of the same page. Google will choose one URL as the canonical version and crawl that, and all other URLs will be considered duplicate URLs and crawled less often.

In this scenario, Google will probably choose one URL as the most representative (canonical) and mark the rest as duplicate. That means you will only rank for the canonical URL so all the work and effort invested in the rest of the pages will be lost.

If you don't explicitly tell Google which URL is canonical, Google will make the choice for you, or might consider them both of equal weight, which might lead to unwanted behavior.

So, if you go on with that structure, make sure each URL is relevant and offers unique content.