I've got 3 posts that are competing with one another in SERPs.

Right now, the target keywords are similar but not 100% the same. As an example, let's say the keywords are "apple cider recipes" "how to make apple cider" and "best homemade apple cider"

It seems that the keywords I'm targeting don't individually get enough volume to really have much differentiation in Google's algorithm so all 3 posts are competing. As a result, all 3 posts are in top 10 but none are in top 5. In one case, the 3 posts hold places 4, 5, and 6. I'd much rather have one post in the top 3 than 3 posts at 4, 5, and 6.

What should I do? I've identified a few possible solutions (there are prob more, these are just the obvious ones that came to mind):

-- delete two of the posts and then set up permanent redirects to send traffic to the third post that remains online

-- re-work two of the posts to target more distinct keywords, as to eliminate the competition

-- add no-index tags to 2 of the posts so they dont appear in SERPs but keep them online anyway

Anyone have thoughts on this?