Optimize Your URLs for Search Engines

Published on May 21, 2014

A URL is the same thing as a "web address."  It is an acronym for "Uniform Resource Locator" and it is used to specify where your page is on the web - and serves to direct others to it.  As you may guess, optimizing your personal URLs is a tried and true way to get search engines to identify, classify, and promote your content - and it isn't that difficult to do!

Here's how to optimize your page URLs for search engines (thanks Hubspot!).

Remove extraneous words in the "page" part of your URL

Words like "and" or "that" - words that no real meaning to your URL - can be removed from your URL.  This will improve readabilty and weight your more important words more heavily.

For example, if your page chain reads:

"how-to-prepare-yourself-for-a-job-interview"

You can remove "yourself" and "a" for a more concise URL, leaving:

"how-to-prepare-for-job-interview"

Removing these words leaves a URL with the most specific and meaningful words.  We left "for" in to make the sentance more readable for a human being (though search engines wouldn't care as much).  We'll leave that choice up to you.

2) Use Choice Keywords

We've talked about the importance of keyword optimization before, and the same is certainly true for your URLs.  Make sure your keywords are indicitave of the content you will find on your page.

3) Make it Reader-Friendly

While readers probably don't look at a URL for very long, they will notice it for a second, and readability DOES matter in that second.  A readable, relevant URL adds authority to your webpage, and helps your reader better understand what it is that they're going to be looking at.

You'll get your domain name (i.e. www.geekchicago.com), your subdirectory (i.e. /blog/) and your title (/how-to-prepare-for-job-interview).  Those parts equally add up to verify for the reader that yes, this is a reliable site and yes, this is what I want to read about.

4) Use hyphens between your words

A bunch of great keywords all smushed together does no one any good, least of all your SEO.  Use hyphens to break up your URL and add readability.  Hyphens are superior to underscores as it visually breaks up the words better (again, for the sake of your readers).

Questions on how to optimize your URLs for your website?  Curious about SEO, or unsure where to begin?  Don't hesitate to send us an email or give us a call, and we'll be happy to help!