Continuing with our 30 SEO Tips for 30 Days series, today we focus on a critical aspect of technical SEO: improving your URL structure. An optimized URL structure plays an important role in making your site more user-friendly, enhancing its SEO performance, and ensuring search engines can easily crawl and index your content.
What is URL Structure?
URL structure refers to how the links (Uniform Resource Locators) on your website are formatted. An SEO-friendly URL is easy to read, relevant to the content, and properly reflects the hierarchy of your website.
Example of a well-structured URL:https://www.example.com/category/benefits-of-yoga
Example of a poorly structured URL:https://www.example.com/?p=1234
In the first example, the URL clearly indicates that the page is about the benefits of yoga. The second example, however, provides no context and isn’t easy for either users or search engines to understand.
How to Implement an SEO-Friendly URL Structure
To create URLs that work well for both search engines and users, follow these steps:
1. Keep URLs Simple and Descriptive
Your URL should be a concise, accurate reflection of the page’s content. Avoid overly long or complicated URLs. Keep them short, but descriptive enough to convey the topic of the page.
Example:
- Instead of
https://www.example.com/product?id=56348, usehttps://www.example.com/shop/yoga-mat
2. Use Keywords in URLs
Integrate relevant keywords into your URLs naturally. This helps search engines understand the page’s content better and can lead to improved rankings for those keywords.
Example:
- Instead of
https://www.example.com/page/1234, usehttps://www.example.com/blog/benefits-of-yoga-for-beginners
3. Use Hyphens to Separate Words
Always use hyphens - to separate words in a URL, as search engines interpret hyphens as spaces. Avoid using underscores _, as they can cause confusion.
Example:
- Use
https://www.example.com/benefits-of-yoga, nothttps://www.example.com/benefits_of_yoga
4. Avoid Special Characters
Special characters like @, !, %, and & in URLs can confuse both users and search engines. Stick to using standard letters and numbers.
5. Keep URLs Lowercase
Always use lowercase letters in your URLs. Some servers treat uppercase and lowercase letters differently, which can lead to duplicate content issues.
Example:
- Use
https://www.example.com/yoga-for-beginners - Avoid
https://www.example.com/Yoga-For-Beginners
6. Reflect Site Hierarchy
Your URL should reflect the structure of your site, helping users understand where they are within the website.
Example:
- A clear hierarchical structure:
https://www.example.com/blog/yoga/poses-for-beginners
7. Remove Unnecessary Words
Get rid of any stop words (like “and,” “the,” “of”) in your URLs to keep them clean and easy to read.
Example:
- Use
https://www.example.com/yoga-benefits, nothttps://www.example.com/the-benefits-of-yoga
Moz points out that “URLs with a well-structured hierarchy and relevant keywords can be more beneficial for both users and search engines,” helping to increase CTRs and rankings.
Why Should You Improve URL Structure?
Improving your URL structure has several advantages:
Improves Search Engine Rankings:
SEO-friendly URLs are easier for search engines to crawl and index. A well-structured URL provides search engines with clues about the page’s content, improving the chances of ranking for relevant search queries.Enhances User Experience:
Clean, readable URLs improve user experience by providing visitors with a clear idea of the page’s content before they even click on the link. This transparency builds trust and can increase click-through rates (CTR).Increases Link Sharing and Clickability:
URLs that are short and descriptive are easier to share across social media, blogs, and other platforms. A confusing or complicated URL may discourage people from clicking or sharing it.Prevents Duplicate Content Issues:
Optimized URL structures avoid technical SEO problems like duplicate content. Using clear, lowercase, and keyword-rich URLs ensures that different pages on your website are easily distinguishable.Improve Crawl Efficiency:
Well-structured URLs improve how efficiently search engine bots crawl and index your pages. A clean, hierarchical URL makes it easier for search engines to understand the relationship between different pages.
Yoast also emphasizes the importance of clean URL structures, stating that “a good URL structure makes your site easier to navigate, which contributes to better SEO.”
