URL Structure: How to Define Your URL for SEO
What is URL Structure?
URL structure is a term for how the components of a URL address come together and is defined by those separate elements. A basic URL is made up of separate parts: a protocol, server id, query strings and resource id. More complex URLs may include such things as port numbers and paths. These parts are components of the structure, while the structure itself is how the complete URL appears.
What Does it Mean to Define Your URL for SEO?
Defining a URL is designating formats and parameters to the URL structure. Defining a URL for SEO is selecting a structure that is SEO friendly. A SEO friendly URL is one that is easily picked up by a search engine. The most effective ways to create this type of a URL is to make it short and include keywords in the structure.
Why Should You Define Your URL for SEO?
Defining a URL for SEO is one important step toward increasing traffic to your site. The easier it is for the search engine to pick up, the more visibility the site will have.
Steps To Defining Your URL for SEO:
1. Keep it simple:
Make sure your URL meets standard, SEO-friendly requirements. This can be done by deleting any unnecessary parameters and ports within the structure. Best practices include: using target keywords, dashes versus underscores and site hierarchy (i.e. sub-directories).
2. Include Keywords:
Users typically don’t like to click on unknown links, so exposing relevant keywords in your URL is one way to build trust with people. Including keywords in your URL also helps to structure your SEO categorization across your website.
3. Choose Your Keywords Carefully:
Do not repeat them, or make them sound spam-like. Google might not punish you, but users might be less likely to link to you or visit your site, if they see a seemingly spammy link. Defining your URL structure isn’t about trying to game the system, but providing quality resources for users.
4. Use Long Tail Keywords:
Including your long tail keywords within your URL allows you to show up for those specific keywords in long tail keyword searches. While a small business owner might not rank for competitive head terms related to their brand, they might be able to rank for the long tail, if they can provide a perfect match for what a user is looking for. For instance, a small shoe business might be able to compete with a big-name company like Zappos.com, if they can rank for the long tail. Let’s say a user is searching for “red hiking shoes” and sees two top search results: www.joesfamousfootwear.com/red-hiking-shoes and www.zappos.com/shoes, the user might be more inclined to click on the specific, well-matched URL than the popular brand name URL.
5. Pick an URL You Can Stick With:
The problem with having multiple URLs for the same page is that you’re effectively diluting your link authority. For example, if you rank for both website.com and www.website.com, Google sees these links as two different websites. Pick one URL and stick to it. To learn more about what to do if you’re being indexed for multiple homepages, check out our blog post: How Many Homes Does Google Think You Have?
Defining a URL can seem to be an overwhelming task unless you have the right resources for instruction. When the keywords “defining a URL” are typed into a search engine, the language of the sites that pop up are incredibly hard for anyone outside of the computer industry to understand. Fortunately, defining an URL can be easier than it sounds.
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