There is a huge number of factors that contribute to your SEO results, and many of these should be considered and implemented whether you participate in a paid SEO campaign conducted by a professional SEO agency or not.
Even without a formal SEO strategy (which is important to consider if you wish to achieve the highest visibility possible online), there are some things you can do to improve your SERP ranks, as well as the user experience (UX) for your audience. One of these is URL optimisation.
URLs are also referred to as links, and people click links to directly access a website. Some URLs are nice and simple. Others look like a long mess of letters and numbers.
Does it matter? In terms of SEO – absolutely!
URLs – Explained
The building block of your website, your URL or Uniform Resource Locator is the web address that users enter into a browser to be directed to your website’s Home page or a specific landing page. It is essentially your web page’s virtual address and it reflects the organisation of the content on your website. It is also the link between your online content and your target audience.
A URL has a specific structure. As an example, for
“https://www.seocycle.com.au/search-engine-optimisation/”
https:// = Protocol
www. = Subdomain
seocycle = Root Domain
.com.au = TLD (Top Level Domain)
/search-engine-optimisation/ = Slug
- The protocol references how the browser receives page information – the “s” at the end of our protocol indicates that our page is secure.
- The subdomain is used to organise content on the website. While www. is the most common, any string of characters may be used.
- The root domain is the unique address where the website is located.
- The TLD further references the unique address and includes many possibilities depending on your location, including but not limited to com, net, org, co; it also often features a country code as well (e.g. com.au – Australia; co.uk – United Kingdom; .bb – Barbados; .ca – Canada; .za – South Africa; .de – Germany; etc).
- The slug is the exact location of the post, page, or file.
(Not included in the above example is an article permalink – this appears at the end of some URLs and usually applies to pages attached to landing pages (represented by the slug) but lower in the page hierarchy.)
Different websites use different URL structures, and each depends on the site’s unique needs based on, for example, whether it is a national or international site, or it’s an eCommerce site versus a government site versus a social network.
What is an SEO-Friendly URL?
Search engines use your URL alongside your title tag, link anchor text, and written content to understand your page’s purpose.
While URL alone is not going to make or break your search engine ranking position, there are basic best practices that apply to URL structure – and it does indeed influence your SEO results and online visibility in organic searches.
URL structure matters in terms of:
Page Ranking – URLs are a Google ranking factor and URL structure tells Google and other search engines what landing pages are about and how they interrelate. Search engine bots crawl and index your website and provide relevant content in search results. (Underpin this with internal linking for best SEO outcomes). When the URL is SEO-friendly, the link is more likely to be clicked on and, consequently, PageRank improves.
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User Experience – UX is a major SEO factor, and having a logical, memorable, and simple URL structure that exploits page hierarchies. This intuitive organisation of content simplifies navigation for human audiences and makes browsing as easy as possible. As such, URLs should be simple, concise, easy to read and remember, and describe the content on the applicable page.
URL SEO – Basic Best Practices
- Maintain a good URL structure – logical, simple, memorable, intuitive, and meaningful.
- Use HTTPS for security and to instil user trust.
- Keep it as short and simple as possible.
- Use relevant, meaningful SEO keywords – and incorporate the same in the page’s Meta Description.
- Customise URLS for landing pages to clearly describe the page’s content.
- Separate words with hyphens.
- Don’t use irrelevant, randomly generated numbers or letters. Also, don’t use “stop words” – the, a, an, or, of, to, for, and, etc.
- Redirect old URLs (edit or change them or add a 301 redirect) so there are no broken links (404 errors).
- Remove dates from old blog posts to ensure evergreen blog content continues to rank.
- Use anchor text in hyperlinks.
SEOcycle Can Help!
An SEO-friendly URL:
- Is short
- Is descriptive
- Includes relevant SEO keywords
- Is user-friendly
- Helps search engines understand what the page is about
Need help? Give us a call or drop us a message at SEOcycle.
Based in Northwest Sydney and servicing clients all over Australia and internationally), we are an experienced SEO Company that’s been operating for more than ten years and offering affordable, economical search engine optimisation and web design/development services to clients in small business and medium-sized business niches. From sole traders to larger businesses, we’d **** to help you get seen online in your best light by the right audiences at the right time.
Get in touch with us today to have a chat and explore what we can do for you.
