Top 10 Tips for Structuring SEO based URLs

The URL may be a simple web address for the common people, but for marketers, it conveys a lot of information. The SEO experts evaluate different aspects of the URL and enhance its structure to make it user-friendly and attractive. You can relate to a confusing URL that includes different codes and special characters. These are auto-generated by most of the blogging and eCommerce platforms.
To help you remove the unfavorable codes and enhance the readability of the URLs, we are sharing some of the valuable tips below.

1. Replace complex terms with simple words

The online community comprises common people, who like to read in a plain language. To help your readers easily understand, replace all the complex terms of your product or service that have to be used in the URL. It ensures a higher readability and makes the users click the link, either from the search engine or social media.
Among the various pages of a website, the contact us form is also a significant one to rank in searches. The users may search for a contact form on Google and may end up with another store for finding nothing on your behalf. Use the simple words like “Contact-Us” in the URL of a contact form instead of www.example.com/page?123. The Contact Form PrestaShop Module is a useful tool in this regard, which help your customers to easily interact with your sale and support team right on the product page. Merchants can also simplify the URL structure of the contact form to ensure it is well optimized for the SERPs.

2. Remove the Unwanted codes

The basic structure of a URL depends on the permalink generated by a website. There are best practices in WordPress to follow a link structure either with posts, categories, date or customize it on your own. The eCommerce platforms also have a predefined mechanism to generate URLs for a product page. For better understanding and visibility it needs to look beautiful and attractive. The marketers who are managing PrestaShop store often complain about the codes that are added to the URLs by default. They can simply install Pretty URLsmodule to get rid of the confusing codes and beautify the link structure.

3. Prefer to use a single domain

Most of the websites wish to have another domain for their web shop that is associated with their main business. It may help them achieve a certain goal, but the search engine will treat the multiple domains as separate entities. And, the links are divided as well reducing the overall ranking and exposure of a business. So, if you need an official blog, host it on the same website you own. For instance, www.yourstore.com/blog and avoid going for www.blog.yourstore.com

4. Make the best use of keywords

A keyword of your business is what you are recognized for. Add the most relevant and easy to understand business keywords in the URL and keep attracting visitors. It is still a mandatory ranking signal to have business specific words or key phrases in the URLs. It helps users to quickly know about the nature of the business you operate through a link address.
The internet users search for a query and the most matching results are provided. So, words matching the search query must be present in the page URL of a product you intend to sell.

5. Pursue a simpler and shorter URL

A short URL structure is the most recommended one. The search engine robots and the users tend to click links that are short. A longer URL gives the impression that a website is either too deep or complex to browse. You might have experienced the online stores having a number of subcategories for products. For example,
www.yourstore.com/electronics/mobile-devices/cell-phones/samsung/j-7/white.html
can be simplified as
www.yourstore.com/samsung/j-7/white.html
A simple structure is more powerful in compelling a user to click on the link and view the details about the product. The above example clearly indicates that you are promoting a specific mobile brand and that there is no need to use sub-categories. You need to implement this method right from the start of your business, but ignore it if you have already spent a lot of marketing effort. A modification in the URL will lose the popularity and ranking or will require you to set a redirection for every product link you change.

6. Write Consistent titles to the URLs

The title of a web page is shown above the URL. It means the users first scan the title and then the URL. They can only click if there is an affiliation between the two. A URL having a keyword of electronics has a lower click through rate if the title is generic. The title of the page needs to be in-line with the URL. If you have added a product name or the primary keywords in the URL, these must be present in the title as well.
The consistency of a title with its link is a ranking signal that helps the search engines the relevant of the Meta details. It is also useful in making the website credible; as the customers become quite sure that the website is authentic and has something real to offer.

7. Forget the use of Stop Words

Stop words are the common words that include and, of, the, for, a, but, etc. it is said that the search engine robots skips reading the stop words in a URL. It means a meaningful phrase turns into an absurd statement just because of the stop words. For example,
www.yourstore.com/tips-for-structuring-the-urls is taken as “tips structuring URLs”, which may result in poor search engine ranking. You can fix it simply by replacing the phrase with a refined one which does not include a stop word. For instance, www.youstore.com/structuring-urls may work well than the previous one.

8. Prefer Hyphens as word separators

The use of a word separator is a must for making the URLs readable. The name of a product or service is not necessarily one word. So, what would you use to separate a phrase in the URL? You will probably use a hyphen or an underscore. Among them, a hyphen is the recommended one. It will make it possible for the readers to scan each word separately like www.yourstore.com/word-seperator rather than going through the pain of reading www.yourstore.com/wordseperator.

9. Implement redirections fairly

Redirections were introduced to help webmasters manage the broken links or modified URLs. It was a solution to redirect customers to the right page if they are unable to find the intended one. If you need to take benefit of this strategy, use it fairly. Do not use it for keeping the audience in a loop of redirection from one page to another.
You also need to set a redirection either from or to the www and non-www version of your website. They are treated separately by the search bots and may the ranking as well.

10. Remove duplicate content issue

Two or more URLs that are directing users to a single content may result in issues like duplicate content. It may reduce the rankings by devaluing the quality of content as it is no more unique for the search engines. You can use canonical tags to increase the chances of higher rankings and increased traffic.
Check the graphical representation of these points in this colorful infographic compiled by FMEModules.
10 tips for structuring URLs

Conclusion

The search engines are focusing the ease and comfort of the end user. And, that’s why every ranking factor needs the URLs to be readable and understandable. If you are ambitious to rank your website or products higher in search engines, you can feel free to follow the tips discussed in this post and evaluate the results.

Top 10 Tips for Structuring SEO based URLs
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