How easily search engine users find the information contained on your specific website depends largely on your internal link structure. Although necessary, URLs can be confusing and read more like gibberish than viable information. A confusing URL structure can also result in a lot of useful information or content going unnoticed, leaving you with only a few web page results that are either vague or completely off topic. Duplication, in which several URLs all point to the same page, may also cause your search optimization to be lacking, causing you to lose out on potential customers.
While all if this may sound complicated, making a website more SEO-friendly is not difficult. SEO-friendly sites, or links, are more easily accessible by search engines when they are properly indexed during development. Here are some tips on how to create an effective URL for SEO purposes you should consider using for your website.
How To Create an Effective URL for SEO Purposes
There are several key elements web designers use to make your site’s URL optimal for web-based SEO searches. These include:
Simple/Straightforward.
Your site’s URL should be written in a way that is simple and straightforward so that it is easy to read and comprehend. Using keywords related to the site helps to optimize your search results.
Using the Right URL.
Tour website must be indexed so that it is easily accessible and not hidden from popular search engines.
Consolidate your ‘www’ and ‘non-www’ domains.
Tour website’s domain link structures must also be consolidated, so as to avoid backlinks going to one domain over another, and vice-versa.
Avoid dynamic and relative URLs.
Relative URLs can create infinite loops that can trap search engines and negatively affect your URL search optimization; relative URLs are also dependent on context, which can change overtime, so using an absolute URL is definitely the way to go.
Create an XML sitemap.
Unlike HTML sitemaps, XML assist search engines in finding your site with relative ease; that said, you should only include the web pages that show up in your results for SEO reasons/optimization.
Conceal irrelevant context.
Pages that do not contain any of your target keywords should be concealed in order to optimize your search; session IDs also pose the risk of duplicating existing URLs, which can confuse your site visitors and make web searches all the more difficult. Instructions must, therefore, be sent to the search engines in order to avoid pages that you don’t want indexed or crawled showing up in the search results.
Use tags to specify canonical URLs.
A canonical URL is the URL that you want visitors to see; canonical tags can, therefore, be applied to assist search engines in more easily locating your site.
