Technical SEO is an important aspect of search engine optimization. In fact, I have personally engaged in technical SEO that has resulted in about almost a 50% change in rankings just by focusing on your on-page to do list. In this article, I will specify the importance of URL structure and what Google likes to see as “clean.”
Permalinks
If you use WordPress, you have seen this option available. This is a very important aspect of the URL structure for WordPress. This also makes the WordPress platform one of the easiest and most loved platforms by search engines.
Setting up your permalinks to just “`%POSTNAME%“ allows you to set it to just the name of the post, page or even product title. This makes it pretty and easy to read for both humans and search engines.
Pretty Is the Key
When looking to optimize your URL structure, Pretty is the key. You want to make it easy to understand. A great example is using the Chapters and Sub-Chapters methodology. You have the main pages as chapters and the secondary pages as subchapters. If you’re a pizza restaurant, you may want to organize your pizza by pizza type. The Pizza type might be thin crust, but you will also want to list the pizza names under this type. So your pages will be pepperoni thin crust, cheese thin crust, etc. ( I am hungry now). The idea is to make sure you create a hierarchy that makes sense, With products you have the same structure. You may have brands, models, and other attributes that can be considered as subpages.
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Keyword in Your URL
One of the other best practices for your service and other content pages is having your keyword within your URL.
This is still a good thing and can help you target keywords that are important for your business. The key is to have a relevant page that has to do with the keyword. But as long as all of these are in line, this can present a great opportunity. Do not stuff it with keywords, make it natural, adding 3 – 4 keywords in one URL is spammy, Make sure to add one keyword that is the most important to the subject of your page.
The Time is Now
If your planning to redo your website or if you’re a new business you can start implementing this practice as soon as your site is ready. If you have a current website you can still implement this strategy; The key is to understand that you’re optimizing your pages. You may see a small decline in rankings, but it will be temporary.