Businesses operating online today know how important it is to rank well in search engines results. Having a great URL structure is a vital part of SEO that ought not to be overlooked: carefully crafted URLs allow search engines to find you more easily and understand what’s on your page.
Here are my top tips for URL structures that will assist in your SEO efforts and help improve user experience across your website.
1. Use HTTPS
If it’s possible for you, use https:// URLs. Google confirmed long ago that their algorithm sees secure connections as a positive ranking factor.
2. Keep URLs short
While search engines have no difficulty processing long URLs, keeping yours shorter will provide a better user experience to your customers. Picking the right domain name can help, as a shorter name will be more easily read and may have more chance of being remembered.
Think https://shortandpunchy.com rather than https://thisisnotaveryreadabledomainname.com!
3. Keyword optimisation
Make sure to use one or two keywords per URL relating to the content on your page.
This can give you a small boost in rankings, but don’t overdo it or you’ll risk being penalised.
4. Make URLs readable
It’s simple: URLs that can easily be read by human users make these users’ experience better.
Better UX = better rankings. Easy!
5. Subdirectories
Always use subdirectories (https://www.eg.com/subdirectory rather than subdomains (https://subdomain.eg.com). You may lose some of your hard-earned domain authority if you use a subdomain, as Google may consider the sites to be separate.
Use a subfolder (aka forward slash) to ensure all pages on your website retain the same domain authority.
6. Less is more
When it comes to subdirectories, keep them to one or two per URL. Having too many folders makes it harder for Google to figure out what your page is about. Don’t use something like https://www.eg.com/folder1/folder2/folder3/subfolder1/page-slug.
Instead, go for https://www.eg.com/folder1/page-slug.
7. Be descriptive
Make sure your URLs accurately describe what is on the page – this helps users and search engines understand the topics better, and will allow you to rank higher in search results.
Great URL structure is just one part of ranking well in Google results, but all your efforts add up. It is vital to consider SEO when a website is being created – if you’re working with an agency, they should be talking to you about this during the process. Once the site is built and handed over, it’s too late to start.
At stickee, our team work with you throughout the whole process and can help you decide the best structure for your website. Contact us and find out what we could do for your business.
