9 Best Practices to Optimize SEO-Friendly URLs

For online businesses like yours, there’s nothing more frustrating than having a non-optimized URL.

You spend a lot of time and energy promoting your business. You have a marketing and advertising strategy to attract customers to purchase your products and services. 

But they don’t reach your website in the first place because of your non-optimized URL.

It's disappointing and you need to do something about it right now if increasing conversions, improving user experience, and growing revenue is your top priority.

But how?

Here are 9 sure-shot ways to optimize SEO-Friendly URLs enriched with SEO tips.

How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs?

URL optimization is a process that improves the part of the URL that explains the web page’s content and is also known as the slug.

This enables search engines to rank your site higher in the SERPs.

But before we begin, we have good news for you. Creating an SEO URL isn't difficult.

Using the following tips, you’ll be able to create a better-ranking URL with ease.

1. Use Target Keywords in URL

To achieve the best possible rankings for your website, it is important to include highly competitive keywords that you wish to rank for in the URL of your page.

According to Google, URLs with words that are relevant to your site’s content are friendlier for visitors navigating your site.

Having said that, overdoing this can harm your user’s experience, rankings, and conversions.

So make sure to avoid keyword stuffing by incorporating keywords wisely.

2. Replace Underscores With Hyphens

When creating a URL, use hyphens to separate words.

This improves readability for the end-user and search engines alike.

Remember that Google does not see hyphens and underscores as interchangeable. Hyphens are word separators and underscores are word joiners.

Here is an example of a URL-

https://digitalmarketing.grazitti.com/blog/the-importance-of-seo-for-b2b-marketers/

Hyphen is used here to let search engines know that the title consists of 7 separate words.

This is how search engines will be able to index this page correctly, and it will be easier for your target audience to find it.

3. Keep URLs Short

Concise URLs make Google and other search engines understand what your website is about.

However, Google's John Mueller states that URL length does not affect SEO. Except for one situation of Google’s ranking systems, where URL length can play a major role.

And that is canonicalization.

All signals from similar URLs that have the same on-page content are consolidated into one URL by Google.

In the process of deciding which URL to show in search results, Google may consider the length of the URLs as one of the factors.

4. Use Static URLs

Static URLs remain constant with each page load.

That way, it becomes easier for both users and search engines to read it.

Make sure to avoid unnecessary parameters like "?" "&," and "=".

As a result, static URLs have increased click-through rates in the SERPS, are easier to use in print campaigns, and can be easily remembered which is always better for branding.

5. Be Careful With Subdomains

Subdomains are noxious to SEO, including link building and trust value.

Subfolders are better than subdomains, unless you have a specific reason to use a subdomain.

Because subfolders provide a clear logical structure and all webpages are located under a single domain name.

6. Avoid Using Dates

Adding dates to your URL makes it longer.

Furthermore, it prevents the content from becoming evergreen, as you will have to update it periodically.

While you can 301 redirect the page to a new URL, however, that’s a tedious task to do in order to update your content.

So, revising the content and the title annually while keeping the same URL is beneficial.

7. Go With HTTPS

Considering that HTTPS is part of your URL, it’s worth optimizing it.

HTTPS is the new standard with SSL/TLS protocol, providing better security for consumers.

Users are protected against man-in-the-middle attacks that arise from insecure networks.

So if your site isn’t secured yet, we highly recommend switching over to HTTPS.

8. Add Mobile URLs to a Sitemap

The selection of ideal URLs for a sitemap is a very important task.

Adding every website URL to a sitemap isn't a good practice.

Adding mobile URLs to a sitemap informs search engines that your web pages are mobile-friendly. That's why websites in the top 3 spots on Google search rank high.

9. Use Favicon

Having no direct SEO impact on your rankings, a favicon can still prove to be beneficial.

This little icon next to your URL in the browser represents your brand on browser tabs, bookmark lists, search history, search ads, and search results.

It helps people recognize and remember your website brand while browsing through multiple URLs.

This increases the credibility and trustworthiness of your site.

As a result, user interaction is initiated.

Key Takeaway

Your URLs are an important element of on-page optimization.

By implementing the aforementioned ways for creating SEO URLs according to SEO guidelines, you're one step further to increase your visibility on search engines such as Google.

Leverage URL Optimization With SEO Tips To Gain More Conversions! Get in Touch With Us to Learn More.