Users’ and searchers’ demands are taken into account when creating SEO friendly URLs. Particularly, SEO-friendly URLs typically have brief and keyword-rich content.
Search engines use the URL of your webpage, along with your title tag, link anchor text, and the content itself, to determine the topic of your material.
In fact, URLs structure is so crucial that a whole section of the Google SEO beginning guide is devoted to them:
Keep reading this ultimate guide provided by SEO company – Maps of Arabia.
Table of Contents
What Are The Best Practices to Create SEO Friendly URLs?
1) Include a Keyword in the URL
The term you want your page to rank for should be in the URL.
(Ideally, the goal term for that page)
Why?
When a term appears in your URL, it informs Google that the website is about that keyword.
Google states that: “URLs with terms that are relevant to the content and organization of your site are more user-friendly for visitors to navigate your site.”
As you see above I use a hyphen “-”, to let search engines know that “web” and “crawler” are two separate words.
I could have used this URL: https://mapsofarabia.com/contact-free-seo-audit/ but such a URL is more difficult for users and search engines to read and comprehend.
Why are hyphens essential?
Hyphens serve as the typical word separators in URLs.
Google advises against using underscores or spaces in URLs because of this. Instead, hyphens are advised.
2. Short URLs
Your URLs need to be brief and to the point.
Long URLs confuse Google and other search engines, which is why.
For instance, this URL is filled with useless content.
This page is about baseball according to Google. But it also involves redirecting… which default?
A considerably shorter version of that lengthy URL is:
Because of how short this URL is, Google can quickly determine what the page is about.
This is possibly the reason why our study on ranking determinants discovered a significant association between shorter URLs and better Google rankings:
Additionally, using shorter URLs helps all pages rank higher. All around your website, short URLs might make it easier for Google to find and crawl all of your pages.
And if that’s still not enough evidence, a Brafton analysis discovered a link between short URLs and an increase in social shares:
Encourages Clicking and Sharing
Currently, an IMPORTANT search engine ranking component is the organic click-through rate.
And whether or not someone chooses to click on your site in the search results depends in large part on your URL.
However, people use your URL to determine where a link will lead them, after all. Additionally, if your URL looks like this, users won’t know which page they’re going to land on:
(Which greatly reduces their propensity to click)
This extends beyond Google’s search outcomes.
Unattractive URLs are less likely to be shared and clicked on in online forums and social media (like Reddit).
Short URLs, the use of a keyword, and other best practices will naturally result in something that makes people want to click.
Always Use Lowercase
Because most contemporary servers treat capital and lowercase letters in URLs equally, this isn’t a big concern.
(However, some people don’t)
Some servers, for instance, will handle these URLs differently.
Pro Tip:
- Use lowercase for all letters in your URLs to be on the safe side.
- Don’t Use Dates
In the past, CMSs (like WordPress) inserted dates into URLs by default:
In 2022, fewer people will do this. However, a lot of individuals continue to use dates in their URLs. It’s also a HORRIBLY terrible concept.
This is due to two factors:
First of all, dates lengthen your URLs.
For instance, this URL includes the date plus a four-word keyword:
There are 43 characters in all.
However, removing the date reduces the length of the URL to just 32 characters.
Dates can make it more difficult to update your content.
Let’s imagine, for illustration, that you produced a list of the “ACTIONABLE TIPS FOR CONTENT MARKETING FOR BUSINESS IN 2021″
Uh oh. The URL has “2021” in it!
So if you update your page to be all about “ACTIONABLE TIPS FOR CONTENT MARKETING FOR BUSINESS IN 2022”, the URL is going to be super confusing.
(The page can be 301-redirected to a different URL. But doing it each time you change your content is annoying.
I strongly advise against using dates at all in your URLs because avoiding this practice will help your SEO friendly URLs be better.
Advice on Navigation
Users’ location on your site is simple to understand with well-organized URL subfolders.
(They also assist search engines to sort your site’s pages into distinct parts)
Google actually claims that:
“A website’s navigation is crucial for assisting users in finding the content they’re looking for fast. Additionally, it can aid search engines in comprehending the webmaster’s priorities for the material.”
Choose HTTPS
Security-wise, HTTPS is more important than URLs. But since HTTP or HTTPS is a part of your URL, it’s important to discuss it here.
There isn’t much to talk about here. The new standard is HTTPS. So, if your website isn’t secure already, I strongly suggest making the switch.
Don’t Use Blog Post Titles
I used to allow WordPress to convert the names of my blog posts into URLs. This practice is against SEO friendly URLs for sure.
Here’s an illustration:
Why does this matter to create SEO friendly URLs?
- First off, this frequently results in longer URLs than you actually need, much like with dates.
- Second, it makes it much tougher to change your content.
So, suppose I decided to change course and make that post into a case study. perhaps a list post. My URL would suddenly become obsolete.
Because of this, I advise utilizing ONLY your target keyword (plus one or two additional words) in your URL.
Nothing Adaptive
UTM tracking and other dynamic URL parameters have their uses.
However, from a purely SEO perspective, these URLs can be problematic.
Dynamic URLs can specifically harm your SEO because:
- Like with dates, URL parameters make your URLs longer.
https://backlinko.com/?utm source=facebook&utm medium=banner&utm campaign=fb campaign - The several iterations of your URL may result in duplicate content issues with Google if they are indexed.
- Users find dynamic URLs to be unsightly and complicated, which might lower your organic CTR.
- Typically, dynamic URLs are too long and are truncated in the search results. Very bad.
Subfolders > Subdomains
Subdomains are NOT AT ALL SEO-FRIENDLY compared to subfolders.
This is due to Google’s ability to treat a subdomain as an entirely another website:
However, Google will recognize that area as being a part of your main site when you relocate it to a subfolder.