7 Tips On Picking The Right Website URLs

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator and is what is basically known as a website address. For SEO purposes, it’s important to have the best URLs to achieve high organic rankings.
Search engines place a lot of weight on keywords in URLs. There are also many other factors that help you pick the right URLs and they include:

1. Keep it short

Short URLs are easier to remember and better to promote. They are also easier to copy and paste, to read over the phone, promote in print, and use in a wide range of ways. And short URLs are easier to understand, more than long URLs.

2. Describe your content

The text in the URL should describe the content on the page. That helps to increase Click Through Rates (CTR) and reduce bounce rates. Visitors don’t want to arrive on a page only to find that it is different from what is in the URL. This also allows the engines to index your site more effectively and understand what the page is about.

3. Descriptives are better than numbers

It is far better to use words than numbers because words help to explain what is on the page. So instead of 224/cat54/, you should instead go with /shoes/nike/. See how the latter URL helps the visitors know what is on the page, much more than the former.

4. Keywords are a must

Keywords can make or break your SEO strategy. Make sure you include them in all important areas of your site including the URL. So, the URL should not just be descriptive – it should include the keywords you want to rank for. In fact, keywords make URLs more descriptive and are the best for brevity purposes.

5. Subdomains aren’t always the answer

Subdomains make your URLs more complex and some of their disadvantages are:
– Not easy to remember
– Not easy to promote
– Complex to understand for less experienced users
An example of a subdomain is product.mydomain.com/html. Although subdomains are a great way to add keywords, they are not easy to promote and remember.

6. Hyphens are the best separators

If you have multiple words in the format of a phrase, its best to separate the terms with hyphens like this /brands/sony-ericsson-phone/. However, you can also use the + sign. Hyphens make reading URLs easier and search engines identify the keywords more effectively as compared to underscores like this /brands/sony_ericsson_phone/.

7. Don’t append extraneous data

Remove any extra data that won’t make a difference to the URL if you removed it. URLs should be specific and as short as possible and you should avoid any duplicate issues.