Website URL structure is an important part of SEO that is underestimated
by many. Beyond putting keywords into the URL, many don't give it
second thought. And yet, it is one of the simplest and most important
things to optimize, and plays an important part in search results. Today, we will discuss some URL optimization techniques to improve your websites' rankings.
When talking about URL structures, a few things come to mind, namely the
URL length, keywords, sub-directories, special characters, and the
effect of each of them on direct traffic as well as search visibility.
Let's start with the simplest of them all.
URL Length
The URL length isn't a game changer in search rankings, but it still is
an important factor. Not to say that long URLs don't rank well - they
can because it ultimately boils down to the content. But on average, the
dominating search results mostly average between 35-40 characters.
Not only that, the URL length is a major contributor when it comes to
direct traffic - i.e. people who come over by typing the URL into their
browsers. The shorter the URL, the easier it is to remember.
Sub-directories
URLs often contain many sub-directories/sub-folders. This very page you
are on contains two. 2015/ and 05/. As far as hierarchies go, it is OK
to have as few as you want, or as many as you can manage. There is no
co-relation between the number of sub-directories and search rankings.
However, there are a few things to keep in mind.
Generally, from the user-friendliness aspect, it is considered as a good
practice to keep it simple. It accounts for more direct traffic. Also,
it is advisable to keep numbers out of URLs, and generally go with easy
to read words. For blog posts, you can either use a dated structure such
as site.com/2015/05/article.html, or category structure such as
site.com/how-to/article.html. Personally, I prefer the latter, but you
can go either way.
Also, make sure that the images you upload are named properly, so that when opened, their URL is readable and looks decent.
Keywords
Having a keyword within your domain name and URL is a declining factor
in rankings. It is becoming less important over time since Google is
placing more emphasis on other search factors. When
you create URLs within your site, don’t worry about making them keyword
rich. It doesn’t hurt to add keywords if it makes sense, but you
shouldn't stuff your URLs with keywords, or they will seem unnatural.
Special Characters
Sometimes you see strange characters in URLs such as &, %, $, and
@. It is more difficult for search engines to crawl websites if their
URLs contain a lot of these special characters. Consider the fact that
Google has gone on record to state that you should be using dashes over
underscores because it affects how their search engine reads the
keywords in your URL. This is how seriously you should take these
special characters. According to an estimate by Neil Patel, only about
0.2% of high ranking URLs have special characters in them.
If you are using images, don't let spaces come in when you name them.
"autumn-sunset" is better than "autumn sunset" because the space gets
replaced by special characters.
Long story short, optimizing your URLs can't hurt your rankings.
However, don't focus too much of your marketing efforts on your URL
structure because it doesn’t impact rankings as much as backlinks or
content quality. It is just there to give you a small edge, so might as
well avail it when you can.
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