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Video Summary
Unlock the secrets to creating SEO-friendly URLs that can significantly boost your website’s visibility on search engines!
In this video, we’ll walk you through simple, actionable tips to make your URLs clear, descriptive, and effective.
Whether you’re a seasoned business owner or just starting out, these easy tweaks can drive more traffic to your site and improve user experience. Don’t miss out on these essential strategies for maximizing your SEO potential!
Video Transcript
URL structure and SEO. Getting this right can significantly boost your site’s visibility. Let’s dig in!
Hey everyone, Jeffrey Kirk here. Creating SEO-friendly URLs can significantly boost your website’s visibility on search engines like Google.
But first, what’s the big deal about URL structure?
URLs are website addresses, but they’re more than that too. They’re like signposts for search engines and searchers.
A well-crafted URL can boost your SEO efforts by making it easier for search engines to understand what your page is about while also improving the user experience. Plus, it gives you a chance to inject some personality into your site!
So, how does your URL affect your SEO?
Let’s be clear from the beginning. An unoptimized URL will not cause your website to get buried in Google’s search results.
The truth is, Google doesn’t really focus much on your URLs when deciding where your site ranks. What it cares more about is how people interact with your site — and an ugly URL can stop people from clicking.
In other words, URLs affect your SEO indirectly, mainly by how they affect people.
So, to make your URLs SEO-friendly, your best bet is to make them user-friendly too.
Clear and easy-to-read URLs that match your content improves the user experience, boosts how often people click your links, and that helps your site do better in the search results.
Here are 10 easy tips to help you come up with URLs that work effectively…
1. Keep Them Simple and Descriptive
Your URLs should give users and search engines a clear idea of what the page is about. Use words that describe your content and avoid unnecessary characters or numbers.
For example: Here are two URLs. Which one tells the search engine and user what to expect?
Option 1: www.upatdawn.biz/seo-tips-to-improve-website-ranking-and-organic-traffic/
Option 2: www.upatdawn.biz/?p=3286
Both of those bring up the same blog post. But option 1 is better because you can see it and know what the content is about. Option 2 is shorter, but it provides no information about the content at all.
Having clean SEO-friendly URLs is one of the factors to help your website rank higher in the search results.
2. Use Keywords in the URLs
Just like you use keywords in titles and headings, you can also include them in your URLs.
This way if someone searches for the words in the URL, and your page shows up, they are more likely to click because the URL matches what they’re already thinking.
For example, if your blog post focuses on “patio covers for bad weather,” your URL could look like this: “yourwebsite.com/patio-covers-for-bad-weather”. In this case, the search phrase and the URL match completely.
Again, let me point out that as a single factor, having keywords in your URLs is not going to significantly impact your site’s ranking.
It’s a common mistake to think Google ranks websites simply based on having the right keywords in the URLs, but that’s not quite true either.
Instead, keywords in URLs help the searchers understand what the page is about. That encourages them to click. And those clicks help the search engines understand that your site is worth showing.
Of course, you don’t want to keyword stuff either. The words you use must match the content of the page and make sense, fitting naturally into the URL.
If you want to know more about keywords and how to use them, check out my previous video with more details.
3. Avoid Special Characters and Symbols
Stick to using letters, numbers, and hyphens (“-”) in your URLs.
Special characters can sometimes cause issues with web browsers and search engines, so it’s best to keep things simple and clean.
4. Shorter is Better
Try to avoid giving your pages long, convoluted URLs filled with random combinations of letters and numbers or even loaded up with too many keywords. Shorter URLs are easier to read, share, and remember.
Aim for URLs that are around 50–60 characters or less. This improves usability and can help your SEO in the ways I already mentioned.
5. Use Hyphens to Separate Words
Sometimes you might see underscores used as word separators.
Google recommends you use the hyphen (“-”) and not the underscore (“_”). That’s because Google views the hyphen as a word separator, but they ignore the underscore.
That means the underscore character can make it more difficult for Google to understand what a page is about, and that can have a negative impact on your site’s ranking.
Basically, if Google says to do something or not do something. Follow their recommendation!
6. Ensure URL Structure Matches Content Hierarchy
Before you start building your website, it’s important to plan the URL hierarchy. There’s no single perfect URL structure that fits every website. It can vary depending on what your site is about.
However, the best URL structure is one that’s straightforward, makes sense, and uses words that describe the content.
Design your URLs to be intuitive. This way, both users and search engines can easily see how different pages on your site relate to each other.
Once your URL structure is set up, it becomes easier to choose the right keywords for each page’s URL.
For instance, if your website has categories and subcategories, your URLs should follow a similar hierarchy (“website.com/category/subcategory/page”).
7. Avoid Dynamic Parameters When Possible
Dynamic URLs with parameters like “?id=123” are less descriptive and harder for search engines to crawl.
If possible, use static URLs that include meaningful keywords instead.
8. Use HTTPS protocol
This tip isn’t directly about how your URLs are structured, but it’s closely related: Make sure your website uses HTTPS. HTTPS is a safer version of HTTP, ensuring secure browsing on your site and protecting users’ information.
Why does this matter for SEO? Because most URLs start with either “http” or “https”.
This means users can immediately see if your site is secure just by looking at the URL. If it doesn’t show HTTPS, they might hesitate to click. Plus, having HTTPS can improve your Google rankings directly.
Google prefers sites with HTTPS over those without it, so using HTTPS is important for more than one reason.
9. Regularly Check for URL Errors
Periodically review your URLs for any errors, such as broken links or redirects.
Clean, error-free URLs contribute to a better user experience and improve your site’s SEO performance.
10. Use Tools for Validation
Utilize SEO tools and plugins that can analyze your URLs for SEO-friendliness. These tools can provide insights and suggestions to help you optimize your URLs even more.
And here are a couple quick bonus tips for a little extra SEO sparkle:
- Use Canonical URLs to indicate the preferred version of a URL when you have duplicate content or multiple URLs for the same page.
- Avoid Stop Words such as “and”, “or”, “but” – these make your URL longer without adding value.
So, there you have it—URL structure doesn’t just impact your SEO; it enhances user experience too. Follow these best practices to ensure your URLs are working hard for you.
Remember, SEO is about enhancing user experience as much as it is about ranking higher in the search results. So, keep your URLs clear, relevant, and user-friendly to maximize your website’s potential.
Got any questions or want more tips? Drop them below, and get mastery over those URLs!
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