How can you write URLs that are SEO-friendly?

1 Why are URLs important for SEO?

URLs are an important factor for search engines to understand and rank web pages, as well as influencing how users interact with the content. To make a good URL, it should contain relevant keywords that match the page title and content, be short and simple, avoiding unnecessary words, symbols, or parameters. Additionally, use hyphens to separate words instead of spaces, underscores, or other characters. Furthermore, a logical structure that reflects the hierarchy and categories of your website should be followed. Lastly, HTTPS protocol should be used to ensure security and trust.

2 How to do keyword research for URLs?

Before you write your URLs, it's important to do some keyword research to identify the main terms and phrases that your target audience is searching for. There are a number of tools available, such as Google Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, or SEMrush, that can help you find and analyze relevant keywords related to your topic, niche, and industry. When selecting keywords for your web page, you should aim for long-tail keywords that are specific and less competitive than broad keywords. Additionally, the keywords should match the search intent and purpose of your web page, have high search volume and low difficulty, and be consistent with your brand voice and tone.

3 How to write short and simple URLs?

Writing SEO-friendly URLs requires keeping them short and simple. Long and complex URLs can confuse both users and search engines, while reducing the visibility and readability of your keywords. To write effective URLs, you should remove stop words such as articles, conjunctions, and prepositions that do not add value or meaning. Additionally, you should remove dynamic or unnecessary parameters like session IDs, tracking codes, or filters that can create duplicate or irrelevant URLs. Furthermore, by using subfolders or directories to group related pages and show the structure of your website, you can create more concise URLs. Lastly, avoid using dates, numbers, or versions as these can make your URLs outdated or irrelevant.

4 How to use hyphens to separate words?

Writing SEO-friendly URLs requires the use of hyphens to separate words, instead of spaces, underscores, or other characters. Hyphens are the most accepted and recognizable way to make URLs readable and clear for both users and search engines. Spaces can cause errors or encoding issues, underscores can be misinterpreted as spaces, and other characters can be confusing or misleading. To use hyphens to separate words, replace any spaces or underscores with hyphens in your URLs, use only one hyphen between words instead of multiple or consecutive hyphens, avoid using hyphens at the beginning or end of your URLs, and avoid using hyphens in your domain name or subdomain name.

5 How to follow a logical structure for URLs?

The last best practice for writing SEO-friendly URLs is to follow a logical structure that reflects the hierarchy and categories of your website. This can help users and search engines navigate and understand your website, as well as improve your site architecture and internal linking. To ensure your URLs are optimized, start with your domain name, followed by subfolders or directories, and end with the page name. Use keywords to describe each subfolder or page, as well as breadcrumbs or navigation menus to show the path and location of each page. Additionally, use canonical tags or redirects to avoid duplicate or conflicting URLs.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?