4 SEO Best Practices for Setting Up Your URLs

There is a lot of emphasis placed on SEO in content, images and meta tags. However, what you name your URLs for those pages is equally crucial to your overall SEO. It is vital that you carefully consider how you structure and word your URLs so that your web pages are correctly indexed and boost your visibility in the search engines.

Structure

The structure of your URLs is just as important as their content. You want your URLs to be as easy to follow as possible. They should represent the hierarchy of your website, as well as the material being presented.

According to an article with the Search Engine Journal, you should plan the structure of your URLs from the start of your website with the future in mind. Structure URLs with site, category, subcategory, and page. Of course, some pages will only be in the main category, and subcategory pages may also exist without the individual page.

Avoid Unnecessary Words and Characters

You should also avoid unnecessary words and characters when you are creating your URLs. For example, an article entitled “3 Tips for the Savvy Shoe Buyer” might have a URL of “3-tips-shoe-buyers.” You merely strip all of the articles, conjunctions, and prepositions from the URL. Only include those words that are the keywords for the article and accurately describe what the piece contains.

Simplicity and Relevancy

Simplicity and relevancy are equally crucial in URLs. You want to keep your URLs as simple as possible because a well-written URL can be linked using the URL as the anchor text efficiently in other blogs and websites. Simple is also better because it ensures you are only using the keywords that people will likely be searching for.

It is vital that you keep URLs relevant to the content being presented as well. You want to make sure that the words you choose in your URL accurately represent what you are talking about on that page. If your URL is not appropriately relevant, it could hurt your search engine rankings considerably.

Use HTTPS URLs

HTTPS SEO is a relatively new concept, but one that needs to be addressed and remembered. Not all sites use HTTPS protocol. However, Google wants their users to be protected and secure. If you use HTTPS protocol, you are much more likely to be able to get higher in the search engine listings.

HTTPS works the same as HTTP, but with an extra level of security called Secure Sockets Layer or SSL. This extra level of protection is most often used by banks, credit card companies, bill pay sites, and other sites that handle financial transactions. However, more and more sites are starting to use this HTTPS technology, and it is being rewarded by the search engines.

If you keep these four tips in mind when creating your URLs, you will notice a significant boost in your SEO rankings. While it might be difficult to go back and rename all of your web pages if you did not start out with these tips, starting to use these tips from this point forward will make a tremendous difference.