With over 200 ranking factors for Google, URL path and length are listed in the top 50 (backlinko.com). Ask any marketing professional you want and they will emphasize the importance of creating short, accurate URLs for SEO. Concise URLs allow Google to index and rank your web pages effectively in its search engine while ensuring a superior user experience for all visitors.
URL optimization isn't rocket science, but it's also not as easy as 'ABC'. Therefore, we share some knowledge to help you create SEO-friendly URLs with less hassle. Are you curious to know more? Let us begin!
Choose a trusted domain: Your choice of a domain may not directly affect SEO, but that will decide how users can resonate with your website. Since user experience is an important SEO factor, you cannot ignore the importance of selecting the best top-level domain. As the most popular domain, using a “.com” can increase the authority and credibility of your website with the online audience.
Yes, you can use other domains like “pro” and “biz,” because there is no initial technical advantage to using “.com.” But what you need to understand is the fact that we are talking about the psychological impact of using “.com”, which in turn affects the SEO experience. Given its popularity, you will find it difficult to purchase a domain of your choice, but you can consult with a top SEO agency and find a way to solve this problem.
Keep length: An analysis by Backlinko has shown that shorter URLs rank better in search engines than their longer counterparts. Shocked? As soon as you have read this blog, you should review each URL page by page. Ideally, you'll want to stay within the 50-60 character bandwidth. And anything beyond 80 characters can be disastrous for your SEO.
To meet that limit, you need to focus on an economical choice of words. Even if the CMS adds extraneous words automatically, you need to manually check and edit the URLs accordingly. As you can see, using superficial words will not only confuse your readers, but this practice certainly works against your SEO efforts. Therefore, keep this point in mind.
Use scripts: Many of you may miss the details, like whether to use hyphens or underscores in URLs, so here's what all the top SEO agencies have to say about it. As it is comparatively easier for both search engines and users to identify hyphens, we echo Google's suggestions of using these characters and not underscores in your URLs.
Here, we would like to remind you that you should in no way fill URLs with invalid characters. Google can decipher these characters, but keeping things simple will help the search engine index and rank your website faster. So, take the easy paths because they will lead you to guaranteed results. When Google prefers it simple, keep it simple!
Improve readability: Don't stretch the URL by adding extra words that you absolutely can do without. Take for example the words 'stop'. Commonly used terms like 'and', 'or', 'the', 'that' can easily be omitted from the URL because they are not even indexed by Google. While checking a URL to remove stop words, make sure to search for around five important words at most.
Also, to keep a URL short and crisp, avoid adding too many forward slashes or folders. If you are using more than two folders, it may be a little difficult for your clients to understand the URL structure. Therefore, URL readability is about compressing the essence of a page's content into five words and a certain character length. Finally, whether you type the domain, path, or top-level protocol, it is always recommended to use lowercase to create URLs that allow for faster indexing by Google.
Add relevant keywords: Here comes the most interesting point: the use of keywords in a URL. Now, adding keywords doesn't guarantee you the top spot in the Google search engine, but it can give your website a subtle boost. However, when your URL is used as anchor text, adding keywords will help users identify and click on your content. So, when you hire digital marketing services, experts can sort a list of keywords and add only the relevant ones in the URL.
That said, we don't ask you to stuff every URL with keywords. A single URL should not contain more than one or two search terms. Adding more will only break the readability of the URL without getting you any favors from Google. Also, make sure you don't repeat keywords because that doesn't create a good impression on the audience. With keywords being an integral part of URL structure and SEO in general, we believe you should hire SEO services for help in this area.
Choose HTTPS: Can't decide whether to keep HTTP or go for HTTPS? Well, there is no luxury of choosing because it has to be HTTPS at all costs. There is no denying that identity theft is becoming a pressing concern nowadays and therefore, it is only natural that people want to use a secure connection. With Google flagging unsafe websites, setting up the HTTPS protocol is a must to improve your website ranking and spread a sense of security among visitors.
For those of you who don't know what HTTPS is, it stands for "Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol," which facilitates the flow of encrypted information over the Internet. In this sense, it is essential to obtain an SSL certificate to use the HTTPS protocol on the website and secure the network connection between systems.
